Intel to Slash Desktop Processor Pricing Up to 15 Percent as Ryzen 3000 Nears - <AUTHOR> https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-cpu-reduce-pricing-10-15-percent,39699.html <comment><USER2> If the performance-competitive AMD CPUs were priced at 15% below Intel, that would be reasonable. But... it looks like you'll pay about 45% less for an AMD equivalent to an Intel CPU.

I'm really looking forward to EPYC Zen-2 parts.

<comment><USER3> The real difference that I find in practice is that, for whatever reason, AMD boards are consistently cheaper than Intel ones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The performance drop after their next security mitigation is supposed to be bigger than this price drop.

The release of their security workaround is being held back until something like one day after Ryzen 3000 release, presumably to cheat the benchmark numbers at the expense of users' security.

<comment><USER5> Do they then run the risk of somebody publicizing the security issues early? For example, if somebody already likes AMD better and gets angry at Intel for ignoring security risk.

Or is this additional mitigations for already public security issues?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought this business has technology cycles. It's just that AMD has missed a few and now Intel is at the mid-stage of it's current architecture. Wouldn't they be naturally back on top in a few years while AMD retools a new architecture family? I don't get the "intel is done for" reasoning. Cutting pricing on a product-line that is in mid to late life-cycle is expected in most other businesses including technology.

There are other arguments wrt Intel not being fabless that I get but those are not the same thing.

<comment><USER7> From my understanding the problem isn't with the architecture, but with manufacturing. AMD is about to release 7nm CPUs manufactured by TSMC, meanwhile Intel only recently sorted out its 10nm issues and 7nm is scheduled for 2021 if everything goes well.

<comment><USER8> > AMD is about to release 7nm CPUs manufactured by TSMC, meanwhile Intel only > recently sorted out its 10nm issues

You can tell who the AMD fanboys are because they keep repeating this line even though it gets pointed out every time that the different fabs measure density differently and that Intel's 10 nm process is on par with TSMC's 7 nm.

<comment><USER9> The difference is that Intel's 10nm process doesn't exist in a meaningful sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's hardly satisfying. Price for an i5-8500 is higher than it was a year ago. They chocked the market while providing low supply and now are trying to fight back with laughable discounts. Thanks but no thanks Intel. My next upgrade will be an AMD.

</comment><comment><USER11> Desperation move, it looks more the more like Intel doesn't have an answer to Zen2.

</comment><comment> yjftsjthsd-h So... Now AMD takes top performance, so Intel gets to be the "value" brand? I'm joking, but this is honestly a pretty funny reversal.

<comment><USER12> Intel is still winning in single threaded work, last time I checked. AMD is winning in performance per dollar, and only because Intel gouges so damn much.

<comment><USER13> Not anymore, latest cinebench benchmarks are showing AMD beating single threaded Intel too.

<comment><USER14> Except fun like..

Intel controls the compilers. The compilers can do special things on Intel and make better code.

Just having a faster processor doesn't matter if most compiled code is slower on your processor...

<comment><USER15> Intel has their own compiler(s) but at least on the server side where everything is compiled using gcc or LLVM, both are optimized for both AMD and Intel. Was AMD behind a year ago in this regard? Yes. Even Windows just finally got more optimizations.

On the other hand, the benchmarks with AMD in the lead are obviously using compilers that 'exist' so really the compiler advantage Intel 'may' have is already taken into account. Additionally, the last few years of security issues has shaved off an additional 3% to 20% off of Intel's performance (compared to the 2-5% AMD lost).

The effect is that Intel has been loosing from both directions allowing AMD to be outpacing them in many ways.

<comment><USER14> Yup, which is fantastic.

I was pointing out that it takes more than an equal or better product at an equal or lesser price, due to many things baked into the current state of computers / servers.

<comment><USER16> Almost no one uses Intel's compiler for serious workloads afaik. Your entire point is irrelevant.

<comment><USER17> Gentoo used to have an article on it on the old Wiki

Of course it was riddled with (outdated) lists of packages that either

A: ran worse than with GCC (this was pre-Clang/LLVM days)

B: Didn't build at all

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> No one could have ever guessed resting on your laurels and price gouging customers because you were the only game in town would ever come back to bite them. /s

<comment><USER19> Isn't this how _every_ business works? If there is no competition, and if there are people willing to pay for the price they set, how is that a fault of the business?

That said, I think Intel has a long history of anti-competitive behavior and we need law makers with a spine to address and punish this type of behavior.

<comment><USER20> Not every. Some continue to invest and innovate. Although this is harder as a public company who is pushing for profits over long term strength.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Their costs are not going to come down anywhere near AMD's for products which can be sold for a similar price, at least with regard to their current product lines. AMD has really hit it out of the park from engineering on up to strategy.

</comment><comment><USER22> They're going to need to do more than that.

<comment><USER23> Intel can coast on corporate inertia for some time. They weathered the Netburst era alright from the Dells and Apples of the world being married to Intel.

I'm personally excited for actual competition in the CPU space. It seems like this entire decade has been in the doldrums with CPU growth. Someone needs to Conroe the market again.

<comment><USER24> Conroe?

Google gives John Conroe (author)

" Chris Gordon, a rookie cop in the Big Apple with an interesting sideline—hunting demons. But after rescuing a beautiful girl from a demonic attack, he finds life stranger than he ever thought possible"

I'm guessing that isnt it.

And there's a city in Texas??

Edit: Corner the market? That's the opposite of what you mean though...

Edit2: Words

<comment><USER23> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conroe_(microprocessor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conroe_\(microprocessor\))

The processor that nearly killed AMD.

<comment><USER24> That makes more sense, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Still overpriced and less secure</comment>


What are red flags that signal you should walk away from a startup job? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-red-flags-that-signal-you-should-walk-away-from-a-start-up-job?share=1 <comment><USER2> I think one red flag that people often miss, or make excuses for, is this: management not treating a coworker fairly.

When you're not treated fairly, that's clearly a red flag. But many people see coworkers treated poorly while they themselves aren't, grab a beer after work and talk about it, commiserate etc. but don't consider the possibility that maybe they themselves are next.

<comment><USER3> This is one of the reasons I left a startup. As an example, bonuses were promised to the hourly employees if a specific deadline was met. Deadline was met, backpedaling ensued and no bonus awarded after the fact. (I was full- time, so not eligible in any case, but I didn't want to work for someone I couldn't trust)

<comment><USER4> Good move, that is essentially a default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also worth reading:

Sick Systems: How to Keep Someone With You Forever: [http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html](http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html)

<comment><USER6> Holy crap, I think my last boss made that article his guiding philosophy. Haven't talked to the guy for years, and still recovering from that job. I'd guess that there's some personality defect that makes a person especially vulnerable to those tactics, but I can definitely say that they worked on me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been through a few startups, but one experience really has stuck with me. I was an early employee in a turnkey software startup built on ideas from a moderately noted researcher in the field the software was designed to sell to. I had known the researcher off and on over the years and he had been brought on as the CTO with the investors bringing in an outside person they knew as the CEO.

They were still in "stealth mode" at this time, taking some earlier work the researcher had spent time on and hardening it for general commercial sale. This was the first red flag I should have seen, instead of taking the time to reboot the product and start it over for a modern market, the development team was spending a year doing bug fixes and cleaning up broken research code.

Not long after starting I went with the CTO to a trade show for market research and meet and greets with some industry partners. He booked us a lavish 4-star hotel and during a week-long trip maybe spent 2 hours at the show. He couldn't get out of there fast enough and instead wanted to rent a conference room outside the city and spend the week brainstorming product ideas. Remember, he had directed the dev team to not develop a new product but to merely fix and update his old code. He then described some new ideas that I recognized as being more or less exactly like a competing product. I asked him to describe how we would differentiate it from that product. Instead he claimed it was a totally different idea. Red flags #2, #3 and 4

And it went on a for a while, intense conflicts between the CTO and the dev manager put development work into a holding pattern, lack of a good sales strategy, and so on.

Eventually there was complete turnover at the C-level and the investors brought in a new team, they asked me to stay on while they rebooted the company so I did, and we did better, almost turned it around. But by that time we were stuck with a huge legacy codebase dwindling investment dollars and a host of other problems that we could never seem to shake.

Despite being a bad experience, I learned more from that failed company than I've learned in the other 15 years of work. Observing so many failure modes happening all at once, and seeing how a pro-team might go about a turn-around has taught me an entire business school's worth of street smarts.

I'd almost recommend riding a company down like that to people serious about startups so they can learn the same things, but to be honest, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

<comment><USER8> This should be a longer blog post; especially the turnaround is interesting.

<comment><USER7> I've been planning on writing something for a while, but there's still some things going on with some of the IP (now years later) and I've found it hard to write about it in an "internet safe" abstract way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One thing that really turns me off is when people talk really negatively about former employees.

I met a CTO of a company in Toronto who told me how his predecessor had set up MySQL all wrong. I pressed him for details, and it was not setup any differently to how I would have. This was not in the context of an interview, but it left a very lasting negative impression.

<comment><USER10> One of the things I eventually realized was that -- maybe not for everyone, for all programs, but certainly for a lot of people -- the programs we write are very incomplete. There's a portion that we write down, that the machine runs, and then there's a portion that's only in our head.

When you've got both portions, everything is awesome. I'd worth with a guy for years, and never had a problem with them. If I was working with some code they wrote and didn't get what was going on, I'd ask them, they'd explain, it'd make sense, and everything would be fine.

Then they'd leave, and I'd no longer have access to the portion of the program in their head, and the code they'd left behind would become worthless crap. The structuring was all wrong, the choice of variable names idiotic, the corner cases they handled seemed trivial and the ones left unhandled, crucial.

Maybe there's something wrong with everyone I used to work with (as I tended to think the first time or two this happened), maybe if we were better and writing documentation this wouldn't happen. But it is very, very easy to be given a codebase from a former employee -- a perfectly fine codebase written by a perfectly competent employee -- and conclude they are an idiot, because you're missing the portion that's in their head.

<comment><USER11> See Peter Naur's essay "programming as theory building".

link:[http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmin...](http://www.dc.uba.ar/materias/plp/cursos/material/programmingAsTheoryBuilding)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "But ALWAYS trust your gut on NOT to do something."

Having learnt that lesson the hard way, I whole-heartedly agree. Our "gut" is the equivalent of a supercomputer against the hand-held, battery-powered rational part of our minds. And it is there for a reason. If your "gut" screams at you to _just run_ , you should at least seriously consider walking away. Every time I failed to do so, I came to regret it.

<comment><USER13> I'm really not happy with this assumption that you've got this incredible intuitive part of your mind that can predict things with uncanny accuracy when we can't reason through it. Snap judgements of situations are also well known to be extremely wrong. Ever judged a book by its cover and been wrong?

Could your experience here be confirmation bias? You remember the cases where you felt you should run but didn't and it went wrong, and forget those where you felt you should run but didn't and everything was just fine?

The other side is that if you leave, it's very hard to say what would have happened otherwise. You may feel you've dodged a bullet when there was in reality no gun.

<comment><USER14> Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink talks about this.

"Gut feeling" is often boils down to a "compressed" rapid response, based on all of our previous experience, without having to go through all the reasoning and debating that we usually do.

<comment><USER13> And the quality of that response can be heavily dependent on how much we've been in a similar situation. Daniel Kahneman talks about this in "Thinking, Fast and Slow".

It makes sense that quick reactions can be good if they're responding to things we have done many, many times before. It also makes sense that quick reactions can be very poor if they're responding to things that we've not done much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WarningSignsOfCorporateDoom](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WarningSignsOfCorporateDoom)

<comment><USER16> > _Your execs with spook connections arrange for your crooked embezzling CEO > to meet with someone in the WTC on 2001 September 11 (true story - but he > escaped...)_

What.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "But ALWAYS trust your gut on NOT to do something. If your gut tells you to not work at a particular company (or to stop dating someone), trust it implicitly as your gut is much better at saving your life than it is at figuring up upside opportunities."

The problem with this is that we have no data on people who had a gut feeling that something was not right but were wrong about that gut feeling. People would tend to talk about times when "I should have listened to my gut about this" but rarely would tend to talk about when their gut was wrong and they were worried for nothing. (And I can think of several personal examples of this type of thing.).

<comment><USER18> That doesn't really contradict his point. It's all about probabilistic expectation. Presumably you have a myriad of options to choose from. If you have a bad gut feeling about one, move on. Obviously there will be counter examples to where this was not the optimal choice, but it is a valid heuristic. Generally in most peoples lives, there is more to lose than there is to gain. You want to skew decision making to minimize potential loss.

Once again, there will be exceptions and people where such an approach isn't ideal.

<comment><USER17> Ok that is fine but where is the correlation between what someone feels in their gut and what ends up being true in the end?

Plus, what is the downside risk of being overly cautious since that has to be factored in.

If the gut is based on things that you have observed in the past, or your personal experiences, then it is also possible that you will jump the gun by being overly sensitive and matching a pattern incorrectly. [1] In that case you could be wrong. I guess what I am saying is "it's not that simple" as trite advice typically makes it sound.

"minimize potential loss" also means "avoid potential gain".

[1] This actually happened to me and although this is just a single example which I highlight and where I choose to ignore the gut and plug on, in my particular case I am glad that I had done so. (Was with a relationship..).

<comment><USER19> Actually, your brain/gut is a parallel supercomputer. If your "gut" tells you that this is a bad situation, it probably is correct, even though you may not consciously know the reason. Your gut is processing a lot of information based on your experience, some of which you may not know consciously.

I don't have that problem so much anymore. When my gut tells me something is wrong, I usually also have a conscious logical reason. It takes a lot of self- awareness, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Counterintuitive rule: When the founder has had a successful startup in the past. They tend to be both overconfident and under-motivated.

</comment><comment><USER21> Not a red flag, but you should always know what your next-best alternative is. The best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA), prevents you from agreeing to something that is actually worse than just walking out when you are negotiating something - like a job.

</comment><comment><USER22> The biggest red flag of all is that it is a startup!

</comment><comment><USER23> If the recruiter tells you that they need to fill the position quick because the last guy burned out...

<comment><USER24> Had that happen with me. Someone I grew up with up held a high position at a consulting firm, and was recruiting developers. He told me that they kept having problems of people who simply wouldn't show up to work. My guess was they got burned out due to the work. Kept on with the interview process and got a ridiculously good, but unofficial offer via email. However, in order to fully get the offer, I'd have to quit my current job first, let the new company know that I have, and then let the new company contact my now former boss for a reference. I vehemently protested against this and they backed down on it. The final nail in the coffin came when I pressed to know what city my first assignment would be in, and they wouldn't tell me. Very shady, and I can't believe some companies could operate like this. For what it's worth, my friend just recently quit from the company as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> CTO is not technical.

<comment><USER26> Or worse, the CEO says he still likes to get involved in writing the code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A Ping pong table and a Xbox

Never used.

</comment><comment><USER28> When they can't pay you

That happened to me once

</comment><comment><USER29> A company using the label "startup" is a fascinating red flag in and of itself. It means bad pay and worthless options. It's amazing how well startup recruiters and VCs have hyped the startup experience.

</comment><comment><USER30> A caveat of the popular "would you invest in this company?" question: it's not a good litmus test for "should I work at this company?" because you're not a VC. If you're considering employment, it strongly suggests you don't have as much money as an angel or VC, which puts you in a different position. Losing $100,000 might not make a VC with $100MM of other peoples' money bat an eye, but what about you?

</comment><comment><USER31> What about when you notice the politics that creeps in when the firm grows? The culture can easily change from a single team on a mission to competing teams, which often isn't comfortable for people.

</comment><comment><USER32> Was I employed there?

</comment><comment><USER33> I'd like to offer a simple red flag that I haven't seen mentioned enough: deception. If management is hiding information or providing misleading information to employees - even on small issues - it's a huge red flag. First, it says they're not confident in the reality of the situation. Second, people who are deceptive about small issues will also be deceptive about big issues that really matter to you. Deceptive people usually start their deceptions small and then increase them as they lead you down a long, annoying path to failure.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of deceptive people in business, so avoiding them entirely is not always possible. If you're forced to deal with them, my best advice is to be on guard. Be aware of what you have at steak if they turn on you and only work with them as much as required.

</comment><comment><USER34> 1) Communication during the hiring process. There's not much else that should be more important to the startup at that moment than you. If they are not fighting to hold your interest you should walk (unless they have a damned good explanation).

2) If you ask the MD what their turnover is and they cannot answer the question coherently.

(true story).

<comment><USER35> MD?

<comment><USER34> Sorry, Managing Director. Hailing from the UK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> When your manager is mostly concerned about scheduling you for meetings.

</comment><comment><USER37> no 1 should be "when it stops being fun" and this applies to all jobs

<comment><USER38> How would you apply this to lawyers, doctors, and the working poor?

<comment><USER39> Lawyers are often known assholes, and in most cases have fun pretty much exclusively at other's expense. I hope their jobs aren't fun, because when it is, it can be deeply disturbing.

Doctors can assuredly have fun in responsible ways, and you know what? I want my doctor to be a happy person who enjoys their livelihood, because if they aren't happy... well...

The working poor are an explicit example of what becomes of you, should you find yourself lashed to unsavory tasks as a life sentence. Very obviously no fun. What little fun there may be, is incidental. Asking that question is sort of tone deaf. Like asking:

      Well what about the cow in the barn? Is she on board
      with becoming a hamburger after she's done giving us
      all that milk? We'd better ask.

One has to assume that no one aspires to a life of working poverty. It just sort of happens to you, like a cruel prank. Possibly as a direct result of lawyers having fun.

<comment><USER38> Medicine stops being fun about 2 weeks into internship. It gets much more fun after that... but there are times when it's not fun. Same with research. Same with business. There are times when things aren't fun.

Sometimes it takes _discipline_ to continue when things aren't fun in pursuit of a goal that is noble (or fun).

<comment><USER37> Oh I agree but at some point you have to take stock and say is this best for me and my loved ones</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Brolink.vim – Live browser editing for Vim - <AUTHOR> http://jaxbot.me/articles/brolinkvim_4_18_2013

<comment><USER2> Uhm, just curious, how did you come up with this name?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not the author, I merely found it interesting and thought others on HN would. :)

I assume the name comes from "browser link".</comment></comment>


Cooling the Earth with a cloud of small spacecraft near the inner Lagrange point - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/103/46/17184.full <comment><USER2> This strategy, to get rid of some sunlight, doesn't fix our problem with CO2. In fact, it's likely to make the problem worse.

Our planet has two primary natural methods for lowering atmospheric CO2. One, natural weathering, is not impacted with this strategy.

The other, plantlife, is absolutely affected. If you were to take 10% of sunlight away from Earth, then it logically follows that plants would get 10% less sunlight to convert CO2 into starches and H2O into oxygen. The resource you're trying to constrain, in the name of fighting effects of rising CO2 levels, is the very resource you need in order to fight rising CO2 levels.

Sure, blocking or deflecting some light might lower Earth's temperatures temporarily, but you'd exacerbate CO2 levels semi-permanently.

We, as a community, need to come to the realization that our CO2 problem is not strictly a temperature problem.

<comment><USER3> Every idea for geoengineering as a solution to climate change is _insane_. They're either nonsense, like solar chimneys, or they're like this one: way worse than the problem currently is, and WAY worse than _not emitting CO2_ would be. Take atmospheric sulfate aerosols[1], which I often see touted as the solution, usually by conspiracy theorists. The kind of people who think "big green energy" is money play, and this simple solution is being hidden for some grand reason.

"Atmospheric sulfate aerosols" means _spraying sulfuric acid into the air_. It's all the joy of this solution with the added bonus of primarily blocking visible light, destroying the ozone layer, and scattering light so that solar panels and plant life don't work as well. Oh yeah, and SPRAYING ACID INTO THE AIR. Intentional acid rain, forever. It's an incredibly foolish, destructive idea that people with zero drive to do basic research support vocally.

The cheapest, easiest and safest way to fight climate change is to stop emitting CO2. It would be so incredibly easy to stop 80% of anthropogenic emissions. These geoengineering plans are worse in every way.

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

<comment><USER4> _The cheapest, easiest and safest way to fight climate change is to stop emitting CO2_

Which is absolutely true, but no one (basically) is doing it. And the U.S. is moving in the right direction in some metrics (solar, wind) but the wrong in many others (urban planning ([https://www.vox.com/energy-and- environment/2017/8/22/1617782...](https://www.vox.com/energy-and- environment/2017/8/22/16177820/california-transportation)), nuclear ([https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603647/meltdown-of- toshib...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603647/meltdown-of-toshibas- nuclear-business-dooms-new-construction-in-the-us/)), and politics (Trump, Cruz, etc.)).

So while I agree with the proposed solution, no one else does, and even then we have to deal with China and India joining the developed world and what that means for CO2 emissions.

<comment><USER3> >even then we have to deal with China and India joining the developed world and what that means for CO2 emissions.

Evidence disagrees. Chinese coal consumption is declining ever so gradually (~1% annually) despite their economy growing as normal. In fact their overall co2 emissions are slowly falling as well. Its an open question whether this is going to continue or if this is just a false peak, but if their commitment to renewable and green energy is a predictor then they may fall below the us emission level relatively soon.

<comment><USER5> Serious question: how reliable are the figures from China? How can we trust they aren't fudging the numbers, either at the local level or the national level?

<comment><USER6> What is there to gain from fudging these numbers?

<comment><USER7> Continued economic growth at the increased rates that non-renewable energy sources provide, without the external disapproval/sanctions that come with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd argue that the more energy you use, the more comfortable your life is.

I'd also argue that energy use (at the moment) is pretty linked to how much CO2 you emit.

A lot of the biggest emitters live in democracies.

So, how do you get the majority of the population to vote in politicians who are going to make their lives less comfortable (by taxing / controlling / lessening the amount of CO2 they use)?

Frankly I reckon we, as a civilization, are going to dither and procrastinate up until the point it's far far far too late to do anything meaningful, and then people will try jump on the geoengineering to hack things into place. There was a nice piece in the book "This changes everything" where they were talking about geoengineering. I'll paraphrase, but basically someone said "we'll just alter things in this way", and someone else said "that'll mean droughts in my country". Fun times ahead.

If you haven't read it yet, I recommend "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air" [0] to get an idea of just how much less energy we need to use if we want to get by with just renewables. I really hope we can get there!

[0] [https://www.withouthotair.com/](https://www.withouthotair.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> _If it were to become apparent that dangerous changes in global climate were inevitable, despite greenhouse gas controls, active methods to cool the Earth on an emergency basis might be desirable. ... It seems feasible that it could be developed and deployed in ≈25 years at a cost of a few trillion dollars, <0.5% of world gross domestic product (GDP) over that time._

The "few trillion dollars" part is a problem. Not because it represents a particularly high cost scheme for neutralizing the warming part of AGW, but because it's so all-or-nothing. If you invest "only" $10 billion in this scheme the marginal abatement effects are going to be pretty close to zero, because so much of the cost is front-loaded into enabling technologies that will _eventually_ deliver direct benefits.

I refer the interested reader to the classic The Political Economy of Very Large Space Projects:

[http://www.jetpress.org/volume4/space.htm](http://www.jetpress.org/volume4/space.htm)

With minor adjustments, it could be generalized as The Political Economy of Very Large Projects.

<comment><USER10> > The "few trillion dollars" part is a problem.

I am not particularly convinced that this requires a few trillion dollars. Is there some hard evidence that sunshades are impossible to deploy with less than $10 billion?

[http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/space/Self- deployed%20extrem...](http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/space/Self- deployed%20extremely%20large%20low%20mass%20space%20structures%20-%202007.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not against geo-engineering as a general concept, even though I don't personally buy into the most alarmist of the climate change scenarios. If we do do some kind of project like this, I would want to have a counter in place in case it does more harm than good, as a general rule of thumb. I would want that factored into the cost and preparations in place for just such an eventuality before committing to such a course.

In this case, though, it seems relatively trivial - it seems like it's more work to keep them in place then to have them scatter to the (solar?) winds. Once they've moved out of the Lagrange point, then they become a non-issue. All we've lost is the money to put them there and the materials. Compared to some of the other ideas I've heard, this appears to be much safer.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you're going to put 20 million tons of perfectly identical gram-sized craft into orbit somewhere, it seems a lot more sensible to launch a factory to the Moon rather than launch all that mass from Earth. The CO2 added to the atmosphere from burning 2 billion tons of rocket fuel cannot be negligible.

<comment><USER13> This is addressed in the paper. It's even addressed in the abstract of the paper.

Edit: _Second is a concept aimed at reducing transportation cost to $50 /kg by using electromagnetic acceleration to escape Earth's gravity, followed by ion propulsion._ The paper says that if there are rockets involved, they will be used outside of the atmosphere.

<comment><USER14> > It's even addressed in the abstract of the paper.

Where?

edit: located below (italics added) thanks. The environmental costs of launch are considered. I can't see the environmental impact of _manufacture_ considered explicitly, though.

Abstract:

If it were to become apparent that dangerous changes in global climate were inevitable, despite greenhouse gas controls, active methods to cool the Earth on an emergency basis might be desirable. The concept considered here is to block 1.8% of the solar flux with a space sunshade orbited near the inner Lagrange point (L1), in-line between the Earth and sun. Following the work of J. Early [Early, JT (1989) J Br Interplanet Soc 42:567–569], transparent material would be used to deflect the sunlight, rather than to absorb it, to minimize the shift in balance out from L1 caused by radiation pressure. Three advances aimed at practical implementation are presented. First is an optical design for a very thin refractive screen with low reflectivity, leading to a total sunshade mass of ≈20 million tons. _Second is a concept aimed at reducing transportation cost to $50 /kg by using electromagnetic acceleration to escape Earth's gravity, followed by ion propulsion_. Third is an implementation of the sunshade as a cloud of many spacecraft, autonomously stabilized by modulating solar radiation pressure. These meter-sized "flyers" would be assembled completely before launch, avoiding any need for construction or unfolding in space. They would weigh a gram each, be launched in stacks of 800,000, and remain for a projected lifetime of 50 years within a 100,000-km-long cloud. The concept builds on existing technologies. It seems feasible that it could be developed and deployed in ≈25 years at a cost of a few trillion dollars, <0.5% of world gross domestic product (GDP) over that time.

<comment><USER15> The issue being addressed:

> The CO2 added to the atmosphere from burning 2 billion tons of rocket fuel > cannot be negligible.

The quote from the abstract that addresses it:

> Second is a concept aimed at reducing transportation cost to $50/kg by using > electromagnetic acceleration to escape Earth's gravity, followed by ion > propulsion.

More detail later in the paper:

> Because of its enormous area and the mass required, shading from space has > in the past been regarded as requiring manufacture in space from lunar or > asteroid material and, thus, as rather futuristic. Here we explore > quantitatively an approach aimed at a relatively near-term solution in which > the sunshade would be manufactured completely and launched from Earth, and > it would take the form of many small autonomous spacecraft ("flyers").

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Since stopping CO2 levels from rising is nigh impossible, the only option left it seems is something drastic like this (I'm reminded of Futurama where they drop a giant ice cube into the ocean every once in a while). It has the added benefit of being able to be done without depending on everyone else changing their habits.

I have a feeling that there are a bunch of these "plan B" solutions to our global climate change problem. It's that they are mostly just giving us more time before we have to actually deal with the problem. If the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation ever comes to a halt then we are really screwed, so if there's anything which could prevent that from happening it might be worth the risk.

<comment><USER17> The problem with geo-engineering solutions to global warming is that they would require global consent. Anything else would be a drastic violation of human rights, and potentially a cause for massive conflict. We all have to share the same planet, and some peoples might be drastically opposed to (potentially) irreversible processes such as the scattering of chemicals in the atmosphere. Any "for the good of mankind" justification is almost beside the point.

<comment><USER16> Wait, so everyone is allowed to contribute to global climate change without permission, but we need everyone's agreement to prevent it?

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately, yes? Nobody made the decision to contribute to global climate change; it just kind of happened as an emergent consequence of the discovery of oil. Whereas a single country deciding to permanently tint the sky is not going to go over well with the global community, probably to the point of tanks on borders and missiles at ready.

<comment><USER18> It wouldn't require global consent, just consent of the few global powers strong enough to do anything about it.

<comment><USER17> Sure, but I think it'll be very difficult to get the US, China, and Russia to agree on something as drastic as this before catastrophic climate-related events start taking place. (And let's not forget all the other nations with nuclear missiles. The playing field is a lot more level these days, for better or worse.)

<comment><USER19> Luckily(?) catastrophic climate-related events are already happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm all for exploring solutions, but I also wonder about the behavioral economics at play when people "feel" like a geo-engineering solution is inevitable.

In other words, how much does believing we will inevitably engineer our way out of the problem keep us from making the hard choices that may be necessary.

<comment><USER21> All solutions are geo-engineering...

Exactly what kind of solution are all the things that are recommended to do to lower global CO2?

The only difference is the current recommendations are inefficient and take a long time.

<comment><USER22> And are at odds with greed / desire for comfort and luxury.

<comment><USER21> Exactly, which is why the whole thing is stupid and isn't going to happen.

Enviros: You can enjoy longer summers and shorter winters, or you can be poor.

Sane people: Longer summers and shorter winters sounds pretty good to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wouldn't earth based reflection be a lot simpler? E.g artificial clouds/ice/etc to reflect sunlight off the planet?

<comment><USER24> Like polar ice ?

this would be simpler for sure but it would require very difficult things to attain such as having people relinquish their air conditioning, stopping capitalism and consumerism, changing the global industrial process, diminishing our energy consumption, replacing the current political systems with democratic ones, returning to ways of producing food that do not cause soil infertility.

<comment><USER23> Exactly like polar ice. The problem as you point out is that polar ice is _reducing_ which just makes it worse.

And obviously this whole discussion about technological solutions is due to the fact that all those things you list seem to be impossible or happening too slowly.

I doubt artificial ice is the easiest solution, but e.g artificial clouds could be perhaps.

<comment><USER22> I saw something on TV a few years ago about a project to make boats which would spray a fine mist high into the atmosphere, ie. create artificial clouds to reduce the heating of the earth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The American Geophysical Union is looking for feedback from its members on geo-engineering efforts like this right now. The draft statement is a good read: [https://sciencepolicy.agu.org/comment- geoengineering/](https://sciencepolicy.agu.org/comment-geoengineering/)

</comment><comment><USER26> $50/kg to Earth orbit would be fantastic. One could get to a much higher exit point than the 5.5 km elevation (18,000 feet) they propose for even more efficient system. Seems like a great mega-project for China. They have the resources, drive, ambition, tech, and access to many 8 km+ mountains to build a launch tower on. Hopefully this would spur the US to partner with Chile and/or Argentina to build one on one of the ~7km peaks in South America. Denali is probably out of the question, but as military project, maybe it could be done.

<comment><USER27> Umm... I'm not sure it is politically feasible to build a rocket launching facility on Denali. That is gonna make a whole lot of people angry. You should see what happened when they put wind turbines on the much smaller mountains of Maine.

Sort of related, I happen to like the looks with said turbines. There are still untainted vistas.

<comment><USER28> Is Denali worth it, given its remoteness, horrid weather patterns, and distance from the equator?

<comment><USER27> From the little I know about rocket surgery, probably not. There are better places to launch from.

<comment><USER26> From US soil? Not sure the US would put 10's to 100's of billions into a launcher and not have it in the US. Maybe the Panama Canal land grab route would be what would happen instead of Denali.

<comment><USER27> We'd probably use the current facilities. I suppose we could also try for Hawaii or Puerto Rico. The land grab is also an option, given the likely political climate if it reaches this point.

My understanding is that closer to the equator is better, with some caveats.

<comment><USER29> > My understanding is that closer to the equator is better, with some caveats.

For this project, I don't think it matters. They even said they will orient the launcher vertically.

The reason you normally want to be closer to the equator is that you get some sideways velocity from the rotating earth, and that is faster nearer the equator. This is important for low earth orbits because the sideways velocity is very high.

However, in this case they don't really care much about sideways velocity. They want to reach escape velocity. As you go higher, the sideways velocity needed to stay in orbit gets smaller, until finally it's practically zero. So, any gain they would get from being near the equator wouldn't be needed.

I think.

<comment><USER27> I'm still pretty skeptical about them putting it on Denali. It just seems really unlikely - and insanely difficult. It's also considered sacred by some of the natives, as I understand. I am imagining the outrage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > It seems feasible that it could be developed and deployed in ≈25 years at a > cost of a few trillion dollars, <0.5% of world gross domestic product (GDP) > over that time.

Much more optimistic numbers than I had previously guessed.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's also been speculated that the same idea could be used to have the opposite effect on Mars. A cloud of small satellites trying to push _more_ sunlight towards the planet, thereby heating it up.

It's all space-nerd talk for the moment, but none of the technology needed to achieve these goals is very far from reach today.

<comment><USER32> In that case, neither is fusion, which is essentially free energy forever.

It opens up the avenue for many more warming and CO2 mitigation techniques that are a reality today (e.g. desalination on a global scale and massive reforestation of Africa and the Amazon)

As well as the ability to stop burning fossil fuels much quicker than transitioning to solar/wind.

<comment><USER33> It's interesting how you think it's possible to do massive reforestation in Brazil and Africa. Think about massive reforestation of Europe or the eastern USA and I think you'll see the fundamental problem with it. That land has already been put to other use (mostly agricultural use) and cannot simply be reforested. The government would have to repurchase the land from each individual land owner to do that which is not at all practical.

<comment><USER34> To be fair, France currently has more forests than it did a century ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> gene-h This project requires millions of square kilometers of high tech satellites. If we could make millions of square kilometers of high tech satellites then we could probably make millions of square kilometers of solar panels here on earth, and not put CO2 into the atmosphere in the first place.

<comment><USER22> "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." William Gibson

The space based sunglasses would shield the entire earth.

I think it would be more difficult to get millions of square kilometers of solar panels evenly distributed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Deflecting sunlight in orbit is interesting.

Regarding deflecting light, for a long time white roofs have been pushed as a reflection mechanism[1] to deflect and lower energy costs thus reducing emissions. Though white roofs may actually increase warning in the way it reflects light onto other particles and doesn't help block it from coming into the atmosphere. Solar roofs capture it better and may be a better emissions lowering tool.

Seems like a better idea to do it from space, unless of course it goes too far and is difficult to control.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/oct/27/white- ro...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/oct/27/white-roofs-global- warming)

<comment><USER36> This seems really viable.

Deflecting is still better than absorbing on the roof top, since roof top means 100% warmth absorption and deflection always less than 100%, probably only a fraction of that.

<comment><USER37> Your assuming that the atmosphere is more transparent to infrared (from a hot roof) then optical ranges (from a white roof).

<comment><USER38> No?

The atmosphere is more transparent to sunlight than to IR, thanks to greenhouse gases.

That's why absorbent roofs heat the Earth more than reflective roofs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > 3 trillion dollars

This is why we need a space elevator! Costs would be reduced from $40k / kg to ~$400/kg.

I spoke to an engineer at a space-focused company about space elevators. He, unfortunately, burst my bubble. While the elevator itself might be feasible, he thinks that countries would never let an asteroid large enough to act as a counterweight, with thrusters large enough to move it attached, enter Earth's orbit. The potential of it being used as a catastrophic weapon is just too dangerous.

<comment><USER40> We'd also need to advance material science and logistics quite a bit. It sounds like carbon fiber has the tensile strength, but we can't make it in near the length nor quality we'd need for a space elevator.

The elevator would need to avoid or divert space junk.

And we haven't actually practiced asteroid capture, much less orbit keeping on a scale that large.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Would it possible to aim to have these satellites shade only one or both of the poles? That could solve the problem of reduced sunlight for plants. (Among other issues.)

<comment><USER42> ISTM it would be difficult since the sun isn't a point source. Fortunately, as other comments have mentioned, sunlight is not the limiting factor for plant growth in most situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Can somebody who understands the subject (or have read the paper more carefully than me) say how the moment of the shadow on the earth would be? Would it be fixed on a part of the earth or move, and if it moves, how fast and in what "orbit". I.e, would some part of the earth get more (much more?) cloudy days if this would to be implemented?

<comment><USER44> The inner Lagrange point is always between the sun and the earth (by definition), so the "shadow" would always be centered on local "noon" and would pass the each longitude at the same time every day.

<comment><USER39> But the sun isn't a single point, it is big! In the same way that a pencil can have a sharp shadow but an office building will have a blurry shadow, the satellites would produce blurry shadows.

I'm not sure of the dimensions of the inner Lagrange point-- I agree that the shadow would be centered on astronomical noon, but I think it would be so blurry, and have such a wide blur radius, as to be unnoticeable except as a change in absolute light.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Sunstorm [1] by Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter, obliquely touches on this though with added aliens and a larger threat from the sun.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35815.Sunstorm](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35815.Sunstorm)

</comment><comment><USER46> I don't have the technical background to know if this is a pie-in-the-sky kind of thing, but it seems like an amazing idea. It reminds me of the "Icarus array" from the book "Echopraxia" by Peter Watts. Of course, this wouldn't harvest energy but just absorb it.

<comment><USER47> February 2001, "Ice and Mirrors", by Brenda Cooper and Larry Niven. Swarm of small mirrors used to cool a planet. Mentioned in this Nature article complaining about the cost: [https://www.nature.com/news/2006/061030/full/news061030-6.ht...](https://www.nature.com/news/2006/061030/full/news061030-6.html) Predates Echopraxia by 13 years.

<comment><USER32> This is the space version of fusion, "just 20 years away" or "within our grasp" for the last 60 years.

In fact, it may be even less feasible. Not to sound too much like a skeptic, but my bet is on terrestrial methods of mitigation, solar/wind/tidal, reforestation and, hopefully one day, fusion.

Most people underestimate by several orders of magnitude how hard it is to launch something into space correctly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I remember a quote from a US geo-engineer to the effect of "half of my job is not to come up with geo-engineering solutions that will be used, but to show people that plan B is soooo extreme that they start taking plan A much more seriously"

Citation needed I know but it has stuck with me

</comment><comment><USER49> "They would weigh a gram each, be launched in stacks of 800,000, and remain for a projected lifetime of 50 years within a 100,000-km-long cloud. The concept builds on existing technologies. It seems feasible that it could be developed and deployed in ≈25 years at a cost of a few trillion dollars, <0.5% of world gross domestic product (GDP) over that time."

Oh FFS. If we have a few $trillion to devote to global warming, we can enormously reduce it using known technologies.

There is an important clue in this spectacular self-own to the emotional allegiances of the people who get excited about ideas such as this one.

<comment><USER37> How about just invest in a solar powered way to make something useful from CO2 in the atmosphere. Like say a brick. We could make roads and buildings out of it.

<comment><USER22> I think trees stole your idea about 400 million years ago.

<comment><USER50> Yep, look up carbon sequestration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Any form of geoengineering that is outside of earth mskes me nervous. Removing or altering its effect might be precluded if society breaks down (e.g.after a nucleur war)

</comment><comment><USER52> So what happens if a big volcano goes off and we suddenly need that sunlight again? Not too easy to clear debris out of a Lagrange point.

</comment><comment><USER53> I don't understand why people are still obsessed with "global warming". The political proponents of it have already changed it to "climate change" after global temperature stopped rising for a decade and it's been almost two decades now. I would be much worried about "global cooling" i.e. another ice age.

A couple of degree increase over the next hundred years (which is their worst case estimate based on the most advanced models, even though no model has been able to predict anything, only fit historical data) will change nothing. Sea levels will probably rise by a few feet and people living in their beach houses will have to find another vacation spot in 20 years after they notice that the sea has been coming closer to their house since the last decade.

Ice age is just as unpredictable (except they don't even have a make-believe explanation for it) and could start any time giving us very little time to prepare. If we want humans to suffer less because of it, the least we should do is try to give over a billion people who have no access to electricity some way to make sure that they will be able to heat their houses if it's cold, like most of the developed world can... in addition, meanwhile, they can enjoy clean drinking water, washing machines, industries etc.

<comment><USER42> Most of your assertions here are incorrect. You don't need a particularly complex model to show that if more energy is absorbed by the earth than is radiated, which is the case due to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the temperature will rise until it returns to a steady state at a higher temperature. This means that even if CO2 emissions stop immediately (which obviously they won't), the temperature will continue rising for a period of time (some decades).

A 2 degree rise is considered to be the absolute limit without likely catastrophic consequences. It is certainly not the worst case.

Sea levels could certainly rise by more than you claim, but sea level rise is far from the only problem. See here for instance: [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate- change-...](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth- too-hot-for-humans.html)

If you're being honest about your introduction, that you don't understand why people are concerned about climate change, then that's a start. If you're instead trying to convince people of your point of view, please provide evidence for your assertions.

<comment><USER53> >If you're instead trying to convince people of your point of view, please provide evidence for your assertions.

That is useless. People follow it like a religion, I am merely trying to have a conversation to few reasonable ones so I can understand their point of view if they have anything interesting to say apart from repeating the same tired tropes.

>You don't need a particularly complex model to show that if more energy is absorbed by the earth than is radiated, which is the case due to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, the temperature will rise until it returns to a steady state at a higher temperature.

Do you have reference to a graph that shows the amount of CO2 in the air vs how much heat is absorbed? Has this been isolated? Can't be that difficult to create a green house and study the relation by varying CO2 concentration. Could it be that the temperature rise is an independent phenomena which is the cause for CO2 rise, not the effect of it? None of the political arguments seem to be questioned ever and no scientific studies seem to come out of it. Given that most research findings are false ([http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...](http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124)), there ought to be some research findings that show evidence against climate hysteria, even if they are wrong, but those don't seem to surface. It is as if any questioning of political propaganda is systematically silenced ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GujLcfdovE8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GujLcfdovE8)).

<comment><USER42> If you're asking for references that CO2 absorbs and radiates IR radiation, I imagine you'd have to look to a textbook or papers from the early 20th century. That's established fact. As far as evidence that increased CO2 in the air reduces the radiation of heat from the earth back into space, yes, there is also plenty of evidence showing that. Here's an article that does a good job of explaining the science and links to several sources: [http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/sci...](http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/CO2-and- global-warming-faq.html)

This paper from back in 2001 demonstrates that the changes in spectra radiated from earth as detected by spacecraft match expectations given the effects of CO2 and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html?foxtrotcallback=true). It also links to a number of papers around the supporting science.

Those are just the first two good examples I found. There are plenty more. I don't agree with your argument (as I understand it) that most research is wrong, and therefore the fact that there's no research supporting your position somehow itself supports it. Rather, while of course not all scientific research is done well, and scientific understanding is always evolving, that does not mean that it is impossible for anything to be known. The great deal of evidence supporting human-caused climate change, and the lack of robust evidence of the contrary, should reasonably lead one to the conclusion that it is a real phenomenon.

<comment><USER53> >If you're asking for references that CO2 absorbs and radiates IR radiation, I imagine you'd have to look to a textbook or papers from the early 20th century. That's established fact.

Hmm... the "established facts" for thousands of years in textbooks and everywhere was that the earth is flat. I guess I should believe in that too. Anyways, I will link you to an article which argues that CO2 acts as a coolant: [http://www.biocab.org/Overlapping_Absorption_Bands.pdf](http://www.biocab.org/Overlapping_Absorption_Bands.pdf)

So, Given that plants grow better at higher CO2 concentrations (as experienced by indoor growers [https://university.upstartfarmers.com/blog/why-and-how-to- su...](https://university.upstartfarmers.com/blog/why-and-how-to-supplement- co2-in-indoor-farms)), it seems like it is good to try increase CO2 concentrations higher and see if we can achieve the desired cooling effect while we are at it. Meanwhile, we will also be solving world hunger, preventing deaths due to unclean water, freeing up time used by people of poorer countries in farming, processing food, washing etc. using industrial machines and letting them enjoy the same standard of living as the western countries... all of this can be done by letting them use fossil fuels... taking the taxes and international restrictions away from the industry.

> > [http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/sci...](http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/sci..).

I read the article and it seems to be posted on a site for "Union of Concerned Scientists", which it seems is an advocacy group for what they think is "scientific". I think that is a very closed minded way to view science but let's examine their claims:

>CO2 has caused most of the warming and its influence is expected to continue

To back this up, they link this IPCC page: [https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/) and I finally found the report after some time: [https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Cha...](https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment- report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf), they could have linked to the report directly, but OK.

Anyways, in the report, they compare various chemicals and how much heat they trap. What they don't compare is how much heat 280 ppm of CO2 captures vs how much 1500 would capture. My guess is not much because a 40% rise in CO2 changed the average temperature by a couple of degrees in the last few hundred years. So, it seems like the relation is either very weak or that there is no relation at all. It can't be that hard to create two greenhouses next to each other, fill them with different levels of CO2 and note the difference and it is very surprising that nobody has done it... but given how modern science works, what is much more likely is that the experiment didn't come in their favor and hence it was never published.

>that most research is wrong

I am not the one claiming that. There have been multiple studies in the fast few years which have shown that most modern scientific publications don't hold up on peer review... and most scientists don't spend their time on peer review. It seems that it is not in their interest to review a study that someone else published. Making new and extraordinary claims with doctored data seems to get all the attention from journalists (and hence more funding), so that is all everyone seems to be interested in doing.

>The great deal of evidence supporting human-caused climate change, and the lack of robust evidence of the contrary, should reasonably lead one to the conclusion that it is a real phenomenon.

100% of Nazi scientists believed that Jews were an inferior race. Maybe scientists are biased by politics of the countries they work in, among other things? Can you name one other "scientific fact" that has not been politicized but still "settled"? Let me help you: it doesn't exist. Science doesn't "settle". It's always open to enquiry and new evidence can always change it.

<comment><USER54> > 100% of Nazi scientists believed that Jews were an inferior race.

May I direct you to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law) which suggests that at this point you have likely lost this thread. Don't worry, you can come back in a few weeks and will likely be able to put up more FUD about how the climate isn't changing and there's "no way to tell" whether putting more CO2 in the atmosphere will trap more infrared sunlight.

Nevermind that this property of CO2 is an established fact, and we have Venus as an example of what a runaway greenhouse effect looks like in real life. Also ignore the advice of the 95% of scientists who have studied this for years.

> the "established facts" for thousands of years in textbooks and everywhere > was that the earth is flat

Most people (including scientists/philosophers) didn't believe that the Earth was flat. The Greeks used the theory that the Earth was spherical to determine the circumference of the Earth thousands of years ago ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes)). And sailors recognized that the Earth had to be spherical from early observations with spyglasses as well. The controversy was between religious leaders who wanted to continue to push the official "Geocentric" model (that is that the round Earth is the center of the universe) in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Of course, the fact that the Earth is round didn't affect most people's daily lives at the time the way climate change will today, which is why they didn't care much either way. A luxury we do not have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> If the authors are around, you're missing some backslashes before your dollar signs, here: [http://www.pnas.org/content/103/46/17184.full#sec-3](http://www.pnas.org/content/103/46/17184.full#sec-3)

</comment><comment><USER56> > there is no fundamental reason why launch from Earth by linear acceleration > to escape velocity of 11.2 km/sec should not be possible

ok... even if you build it 5km in the sky, a 1km long launch rail would still apply 6,000 Gs of acceleration. Good luck designing a spacecraft that can survive that.

<comment><USER37> Or don't waste 5km and make the tube 5km. The acceleration drops to 1282G. Digging a 1km hole drops it to 1000G or so. Not really that much. About the acceleration a woodpecker head gets, less than a baseball being hit by a bat, or what a wrist watch can withstand. Under 1/10th that of the electronics in an artillery shell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Isn't this what Mr. Burns did on The Simpsons except for Springfield instead of Earth?

</comment><comment><USER58> Does anyone have links to a good recent research paper on climate change? With modeling details and dataset. I've looked around but it's difficult to find the best/most recent knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER59> "A major technical hurdle to be overcome is the instability of the orbit, which is at a saddle point."

Tether from the lunar surface, through the Lagrange point.

</comment><comment><USER60> One option is to find a way to decrease human population voluntarily. That will reverse human related climate change in more natural and comprehensive way.

</comment><comment><USER61> How would a "cloud" at the Lagrange point be removed in the event of a global cool down or "black swan" event occurred?

<comment><USER62> From the article, the L1 Lagrange point isn't stable, it's a saddle.

In the plan described here, the craft would be actively controlled to adjust how much light they're diverting and at what angle in order to stay balanced at the Lagrange.

If the steering system is turned off all the reflectors would harmlessly blow away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Don't we need the photons to convert CO2 back into O2 through photosynthesis?

</comment><comment><USER64> simpsons did it [https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/article-1300967...](https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/article-1300967207614-0b51086100000578-330784_636x336.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER65> What idiot called this "Feasibility of cooling the Earth with a cloud of small spacecraft near the inner Lagrange point" instead of "Solar Eclipses As A Service?"

</comment><comment><USER66> Why not a giant magnifying glass to concentrate the sun and increase temps on enemy territory?

</comment><comment><USER67> This is a shit test.

<comment><USER22> It might be!

lifeisstillgood 16 hours ago

I remember a quote from a US geo-engineer to the effect of "half of my job is not to come up with geo-engineering solutions that will be used, but to show people that plan B is soooo extreme that they start taking plan A much more seriously"

Citation needed I know but it has stuck with me

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> With regard to stability, just use L4 and L5! Park some anchor objects at L4 and L5, and stretch a big tape-like net between those things, in the middle of which is the shading device. Problem solved! :)</comment>


Introduction to Raphaël JS - <AUTHOR> http://devhike.blogspot.com.ar/2013/03/introduction-to-raphael.html I made this presentation to introduce this library in the easier way I can, hope that anyone interested like it and learn from it. <comment><USER2> I learned about RaphaelJS recently and used it (along with some jQuery code) to make a very interactive county-by-county map of data our company is interested in displaying for marketing purposes.

I've heard about D3 (<http://d3js.org/>), but haven't had a chance to use it in my work yet. Can anyone offer comparisons with its SVG rendering performance & capabilities?

<comment><USER3> D3 just exposes SVG directly to you. But with county maps specifically, you can compress and simplify the data with TopoJSON and use d3.geo to render it. d3.geo even has a canvas renderer and many projections to choose from. And since it's d3, you can do data-driven transitions between different datasets and projections.

I bet you haven't seen anything like this in Raphael.

<http://www.jasondavies.com/maps/transition/>

<comment><USER2> The transitions are what really interest me about D3. It seems much better suited for that use-case. Thanks for the interesting link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Guys, one of the common use cases involve converting an svg to a raphael elements before using them, I also made a post of how to do this ([http://devhike.blogspot.com/2013/02/convert-svg-to- raphael-i...](http://devhike.blogspot.com/2013/02/convert-svg-to-raphael-in- one-step.html)).

Perhaps its also useful. Enjoy!

<comment><USER4> thanks this is very useful. i made this little video tutorial <http://captico.com/animation-with-raphaeljs/2010/07> showing how to take an illustrator exported svg and animate the paths... i think having your rappar will make the whole process of building animations much easier... thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why do you put the two dots over the 'e'? Don't you know that this is the kind of unnecessary flooflaw that breaks things?

A few years ago I downloaded a tarball of Java source code from somewhere. The author's name in a comment had a vowel with two dots over it, and that was the only non-ASCII character in the files. I _could not_ get those files to compile at all! I was using official JDK and everything. Finally I did a mass search-and-replace to get rid of the funny character and they compiled fine.

Non-ASCII characters in filenames are just as bad as spaces. Why, back in my day, we got by with eight and three! And we didn't even have directories until DOS 2.0! Now get off my lawn.

</comment><comment><USER6> While we're talking about this, does anyone know what might be causing this slowdown that my buddy is running in to when using Raphael to run an infinitely repeating animation?

Details are at this stackoverflow question: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15098456/raphael- gradual-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15098456/raphael-gradual- animation-slowdown-with-simple-infinite-animation)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is sort of off topic so apologies in advance. I am a data scientist who wants to get into designing visualizations on the web. Is there a 101 of where to start? I have not done much on the lines of web development so I don't really know if spending a few months learning say Javascript is what I should do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps you can also take a look at my other post: <http://devhike.blogspot.com.ar/2013/02/js-for-newbies.html>

If web development is what you want, javascript is a must.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really, really like Raphael. I was in a position to try out Easel, Fabric and Raphael and while is was my personal favorite, our needs to stay close to AS3 (to port flash) meant we went with Easel.

Raphael is a very nice library though.

<comment><USER9> I totally second this. The learning curve for Raphael is so much less steep than D3 and there's some really nice functionality built into the framework. The only (small) qualm I have is that it's a relatively bulky package, but you definitely can cut out pieces that you don't use that are unnecessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really like this tutorial, a concise number of slides which (excuse me) paint a broad picture.

AFAICT there is no jQuery dependency, or am I mistaken?

<comment><USER11> there is no jQuery dependency

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't know if the problem is only with me, but the link shows a blank page.

Can someone confirm that?

<comment><USER13> Have you disabled JavaScript ? :)

If you reenable JS in your browser you should be able to see the content of the page.

<comment><USER12> Nope. JS is working.

I'll see at home. Seems like something with the restrictions from company I work.

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments!</comment>


Rasmus Lerdorf (creator of PHP): PHP Frameworks All Suck - <AUTHOR> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DuB6UjEsY_Y <comment> mm-vorticesoft A lot of things has changed since that time</comment>


Cryptowat.ch API Client for Swift Released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/benbinary/Cryptowatcher <comment><AUTHOR> Cryptowatcher for Swift will let you fetch data from all of the cryptowat.ch endpoints decoded as structs using Codable, which was introduced in Swift 4. Happy hacking!</comment>


Analysis: World of Goo's iPad Launch - <AUTHOR> http://2dboy.com/2011/02/08/ipad-launch/

<comment><USER2> please, 2dboy, please don't capitulate to the loud dumb people. Where's the enjoyment in completing a level/game if you've been spoon fed it?

related: I played EA's Need For Speed on the iPad recently, and I noticed they've provided a means to essentially buy your way through the game

<comment><USER3> I don't mind. You don't need to skip the levels if you don't want to. Two recent puzzle games I've played on the iPhone (Cut the Rope, and Puzzler World) both offer ways to skip through difficult puzzles, and I've yet to use them.

Re: EA's "buying your way through a game", this is old (comparatively) behaviour that's been going on in XBLM and PSN. It's annoying, but so far it's been ignorable. Multiplayer that requires DLC rubs me the wrong way, but I vote with my wallet and stop playing when this sort of thing happens (it's been rare that I've found continued value in a game when they do this, but I suspect I'm in the minority).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Didn't think I could gain more respect for this team, but reading this made it happen.

I love the honesty about playing the app store lottery and comparing it to console sales. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER5> Getting featured by Apple is something every app developer hopes for. Hell I'd have loved to have had my Valentine's themed game ([http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/three-or-more-valentines- matc...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/three-or-more-valentines- match/id414832440)) featured in their Valentine's day section [http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMultiR...](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewMultiRoom?fcId=418011237&ign- mscache=1)

I'm glad they sold well though, more revenue than through any of their other offerings. I hope they also consider moving to the Mac Store too.

<comment><USER6> Nit: the blog post said "fastest selling", not "most revenue". It's been out on PC and Wii for over two years, so it's probably earned much more money on both the platforms by now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That Top Grossing Rank chart is great! Check out the rectangles... Top 25? Easier to get into than the Top 10.</comment>


Hutt by Citrix: Video chat over WebRTC - <AUTHOR> https://hu.tt/

<comment><USER3> Why Chrome only? Which block do you rely on that isn't supported by Firefox? [http://iswebrtcreadyyet.com/](http://iswebrtcreadyyet.com/)

<comment><USER4> I came here to say the same thing.

> Sorry, your browser ins't [sic] supported yet.

On a bleeding-edge Firefox.

<comment><USER5> Internet is increasingly webkit only. Sigh.

<comment><USER6> You mean the web

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool; support is limited. I like to think we did better at Sococo.com - <USER2> support dozens of simultaneous participants, a dedicated client and web clients too.

Here's a picture of Teamspace at work: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/nb5tqqeux0n1xep/SococoMtg.png](https://www.dropbox.com/s/nb5tqqeux0n1xep/SococoMtg.png) We meet like this all the time; there were 23 people in that virtual room, 7 sharing webcams and one webcam in our central office. 2 documents were being shared, a common chat thread was going on. Probably many p2p chats going on; I couldn't see that as they're private.

<comment><USER8> Is Sococo a web app? Does it support Linux and Windows? I looked very hard to find answers to these two questions on your site. The only way I can really tell is by looking at your screenshot that appears to be a Windows standalone application.

A working demo would be a nice addition to your site. I'm too stubborn to signup for a demo, so without a public demo I don't see myself ever being a customer, which is unfortunate because the software or web app looks useful.

<comment><USER7> Rolling out a simpler design and a new website in a few days. Some of your objections will be met!

I'll answer here: there's a client for mac, windows, iOS and ipad. There's a web client too - but the conversation has to be hosted by a non-web client and invites sent as a url.

There's a headless Linux version but we use that on servers for media switching etc.

It supports call-out now (to any phone). Call-in is harder - you have to resolve an unsolicited call to a virtual office - we're working on it now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I found [https://appear.in](https://appear.in) to be better.

</comment><comment><USER10> Somebody messed up and used the active bullets as inactive bullets in the slider, to the right.

</comment><comment><USER11> _Hutt works exclusively (for now) with Chrome._

Useless crap. There's dozens of other WebRTC apps out now that support all WebRTC browsers and interop. Why should I use a clearly inferior one?

</comment><comment><USER12> It just hangs on the "building your Hutt" page for me. Either it's swamped, or my company is blocking WebRTC somehow. Is there any way to verify WebRTC availability?

</comment><comment><USER13>
      Sorry, your browser ins't supported yet.

That'd be the most recent Firefox on Windows.

</comment><comment><USER14> well my roommate has made this also video chat over webRTC

check [http://easymeeting.us/hello](http://easymeeting.us/hello)

hello is the room name which you could setup by accessing it

</comment><comment><USER15> God, that website looks awful in a small browser window.

</comment><comment><USER16> Also, why limit it to 4 people total?

</comment><comment><USER17> is any of the links shared in here available as open source?

<comment><USER18> Yes! Check out [https://opentokrtc.com/](https://opentokrtc.com/) brought to you by TokBox - I work on the BD team here, please reach out if you have any questions - edward [at] tokbox [dot] com

<comment><USER17> Thanks a lot for that link!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Skype close-source "alternative"? No, thanks!</comment>


Head of Postal Workers Union Says Postal Service Could Be Dead in Three Months - <AUTHOR> http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/22470/mark_dimondstein_apwu_union_post_office_shut_down_trump_gop <comment><USER2> The mail-in ballot angle is really concerning here. We need the ability to do that. And we need a post office to do that.

<comment><USER3> Absentee ballots can be sent with private couriers like FedEx. That's actually what some people living overseas have to do. Election commissions can choose to send ballots via private mail couriers as well, and allow people to print and send self-certified ballots.

<comment><USER4> How much does that cos? The post office is cheap for a lightweight letter (and I can use a stamp from home), but if I use FedEx I generally have to go to their local shop and pay a few dollars

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's amazing to me that this isn't being covered more on the mainstream media.

<comment><USER6> There's no point in covering any US government shutdown more than a week or two before it happens. We've turned political gamesmanship into a refined art- form.

Everyone knows the USPS isn't going to stop running. Republicans will try to gut the union as a precondition for emergency funding. Democrats will try to beef up the retirement funds. Of course the head of the Postal Workers Union will want to prevent the former from getting pushed through the negotiations, so they'll talk up the potential shutdown now. But that doesn't mean it's a realistic outcome.

We'll inevitably get a shitty, 18 month funding deal out of it, and kick the can down the road to the next congress. It will suck, we'll live with it, whatever. Everyone knows this is the outcome though, and there's no point talking about THAT stupid game when we have the stupid game of the week to cover -- in this case, re-funding the Paycheck Protection Program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't parcel volume up substantially right now? How could a post office be teetering when online retail is at unprecedented volumes right now?

<comment><USER8> The postal service is subject to a law saying it has to pre-fund it's benefit plans; this is due to a law passed by the Republican congress specifically so they could point to the USPS failing finances and use that as the excuse for privatising it.

Just another part of our American heritage getting looted by private equity.

<comment><USER7> I agree with you in that it's an unreasonable expectation, but this does not explain the alleged crisis.

By my calculations, their revenue numbers should be flat or slightly up now.

Parcel volumes are up in excess of 150% where I live.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If the Post Office is floundering when FedEx and UPS are turning profits, then something is out of whack.

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't imagine I would get much junk mail delivered through UPS and FedEx.

<comment><USER11> Interesting. You think UPS and FedEx aren't interested in the new money on the table from advertisers that are suddenly willing to pay their higher prices?

<comment><USER12> I'm guessing the rates wouldn't be subsidized to the degree of USPS.

<comment><USER13> Junk mail is a profit center for the USPS. It isn't the thing being subsidized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This has two components. First, Trump hates the Postal Service, because he mistakenly believes that they are giving Amazon (owned by Bezos, whom Trump despises) too good of a deal:

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/98006358159204761...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/980063581592047617)

[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/98006541963256627...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/980065419632566272)

The second part is that Republicans believe starving the Postal Service will be yet another hurdle to throw in front of mail-in voting, which is gaining momentum amidst the coronavirus crisis. After all, without USPS, there wouldn't be a low-cost option to mail ballots.

The entire thing is cynical and vile.

edit: judging by the downvoters I guess I hit a raw nerve...

<comment><USER15> Didn't downvote but my guess is people aren't interested in discussing pure politics. Doesn't necessarily mean they think you're wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Maybe it's time. The whole USPS as a quasi-governmental entity thing has been an anachronism for about a hundred years and a farce ever since email replaced its raison d'etre.

Just delete every law on the books that distinguishes it in any way from UPS or FedEx and let it live or die on its own merits.

<comment><USER5> So price most rural citizens out of mail?

<comment><USER17> if that's the worry we can just subsidize UPS etc to service them.

it's a lot cheaper and more efficient than this

<comment><USER18> It's only efficient as a way to funnel taxpayer money into stockholders' pockets. "Privatizing" a service but continuing to pick winners and subsidize them isn't really privatizing and isn't compatible with a real free market. It's literally a kind of command economy, albeit one designed to benefit only a few.

<comment><USER19> > continuing to pick winners and subsidize them

Another approach could be to just give rural Americans more cash, and let them pick the winners, as consumers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intel Co-Founder's Silicon Valley Estate Lists for $21.8M - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/intel-co-founders-silicon-valley-estate-lists-for-21-8-million-1537282101 <comment><USER2> Bought for $5.5 million in 1999, and going for $21.8 million now.

So about 7.5% per year in appreciation over 19 years.

Really good rate of return but not the eye popping numbers you expect to hear from the heart of Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER3> Would have been better off buying the S&P

<comment><USER4> No, assuming 9/99 - 9/18.

[https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/](https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return- calculator/)

         Annualized S&P 500 Return (Dividends Reinvested)	6.141%

But I don't know what improvements were made to the house or what they cost... also didn't calculate the ongoing maintenance costs..

<comment><USER5> Not sure on the property tax situation in SV, but a common assumption is 1% of the houses's value annually. So with that considered, it is probably close to a wash with the S&P 500. And whatever upkeep as well, as you said.

<comment><USER6> Because of Prop 13 tax increase year to year is limited to inflation or 2% increase (whichever is lower). So yes, you start with ~1% of the house value but with 7% average increase in property value and limited to 2% increase in tax value you end up banking most of that property value increase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Always amusing what the WSJ's sense of proportion and aesthetics are (I know they're attributing the quote to his biographer, but still):

> She called the French-style home "nice but not ostentatious,"

> The property also contains a three-bedroom guesthouse, a grotto-style > swimming pool, a lighted tennis court, a putting green, a bocce court, a > barn and a vineyard.

<comment><USER8> Don't see how that's a contradiction, assuming that they actually use those features.

> Ostentatious: characterized by vulgar or pretentious display; designed to > impress or attract notice

If you want to see some ostentatious houses, check out the McMansion Hell blog.

<comment><USER9> > Ostentatious: characterized by vulgar or pretentious display; designed to > impress or attract notice

Seems like a mansion to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here is the actual property: [https://www.sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/detail/180-l-1190-2...](https://www.sothebysrealty.com/eng/sales/detail/180-l-1190-27n7ds/los- altos-golf-country-club-compound-los-altos-ca-94024)

It backs up against I-280

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks like it's just the land that stayed the same. The house is totally new: [https://www.redfin.com/CA/Woodside/45-Roberta- Dr-94062/home/...](https://www.redfin.com/CA/Woodside/45-Roberta- Dr-94062/home/1980302)

<comment><USER12> I think that's not the right property, as it's in Woodside not Los Altos Hills. Based on google maps and the picture in the WSJ article, the location of the property appears to be 690 Loyola Drive, Los Altos, CA. It seems to be multiple parcels (one for the vineyard and one for the house).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Moderate to small, 3/4 bedroom, 2 bathroom houses sell for $4M or so in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. I'm not sure how newsworthy it is that a co-founder of a major corporation has a home 5x the cost of normal homes in the neighborhood.

</comment><comment><USER9> I can't read the article. Why is this interesting?

</comment><comment><USER14> Archive (Non-Paywall): [http://archive.is/VNiUp](http://archive.is/VNiUp)

</comment><comment><USER15> Anyone have a free link?

<comment><USER16> Click "Web" up under the article title

<comment><USER15> Ah nice, didn't know that. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Google+ Collections, a new way to group your posts by topic - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/+googleplus/posts/7ZpGWeou2sV

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting development in the world of Google+. This is one area I have been following, somewhat. It is great to see that Google+ is in fact putting effort into developing this network instead of ditching it like they have so many other projects (and social networks.)

Personally, I don't see this feature as "revolutionary." For me, it doesn't add much value to the social network aspect of Google+. I do suppose some people might find it handy, but to me it is just one step above a "hash tag."

More big picture, this is a sign (for now) that Google+ is here to stay, and something they are investing in.

Anyone with insider knowledge have anything to say about this?

<comment><USER2> I don't have insider knowledge, but I disagree that it's nice they're putting effort into it. Google+ was never about users -- it was about fear of Facebook.

I hate few products/brands as much as I hate Google+, if only because it's a bald-faced (and somewhat successful) attempt at eroding privacy for Gmail users. I don't want to see more features. I want it to die.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are you planning to move HN to IPv6? - <AUTHOR>

Are you planning to move HN to IPv6?<p>It would be great to see in IPv6 the content of this site. <comment><USER2> What's the benefit?

I would expect pg to adopt IPv6 right after he replaces his table-based markup with CSS.

<comment><AUTHOR> honestly not many, but:

they have to do it sooner or later, the sooner the better.

it would be an example to other people here deploying their websites (may be this is to late to little but some people really would follow their example)

because it is the right think to do.

because contrary to css vs tables, ipv6 is not backward compatible with ipv4.

and because i could add their website to my experiment, but that it is more in my benefit than in theirs =).</comment></comment>


New York Lawmakers Set Aside Bill Threatening Tesla Sales - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-22/new-york-lawmakers-set-aside-bill-threatening-tesla-sales.html

<comment><USER2> Why would someone even consider creating a law to protect an industry that technological and business model "innovations" are threatening to replace.

Is that not how the free-market is suppose to keep the whole system efficient?

It just sounds absurd:

"I'm going to jail Hun"

\- what did you do?

"I made a car... and then I sold it... directly to those who wanted it"

\- .......

ridiculous

<comment><USER3> Rent Seeking exists in so many places.

 _" rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth"_

A great side effect of popular companies like Tesla and Uber is the attention they bring to these practices.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Similar events happened in Texas, but Texas' legislature isn't back in session until 2015.

[http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/04/autos/tesla- texas/index.html](http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/04/autos/tesla- texas/index.html)

and in North Carolina... "Any time there's an innovative way to bring a product to market it's going to initially get push back from the fellows that have been doing business the same way since 1902..."

[http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/05/24/4062463/tesla- se...](http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/05/24/4062463/tesla-service- center-in-raleigh.html#storylink=cpy)

</comment><comment><USER4> Does banning direct auto sales make sense anymore? Did it ever?

<comment><USER5> I believe that it was originally a customer-protection measure. These days though, it's just a way to protect car dealerships from competition with the manufacturers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is Tesla direct selling to customers hurting car shops that sell cars from one or more traditional manufacturers but none from Tesla ?

Is there a rationale behind that ? As in car shops are scared Ford or GM would open a direct-to-customers shops for lower prices than they could offer to ?

<comment><USER7> NPR's Planet Money did an interesting show on the topic: [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why- buyi...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/19/172402376/why-buying-a-car- never-changes)

<comment><USER6> Thank you.

> There are plenty other businesses employ lots of people but don't have so > much protection from state laws. > > That may partly be due to the fact that > car dealers have a lot political power. Dealers contribute a big share of > state sales tax revenues — as much as 20 percent in some states — and they > tend to be big local employers. That makes state and local legislators > listen.

Interesting. So they basically are afraid of any dent in the system even if it wouldn't erode their own sells (of every brand but Tesla).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Related Reading: "Economic Effects of State Bans on Direct Manufacturer Sales to Car Buyers": [http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/eag/246374.htm](http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/eag/246374.htm)

</comment><comment><USER9> How many salemen do you need to run a dealership? I would have thought most of the dealership employees are the mechanics and support services?

</comment><comment><USER10> Atlas Shrugged. We continue to approach it.

For those not familiar; from the wilipedia page:

"The book explores a number of philosophical themes from which Rand would subsequently develop Objectivism.[7][8] In doing so, it expresses the advocacy of reason, individualism, capitalism, and the failures of governmental coercion."

</comment><comment><USER11> Whew!

</comment><comment><USER12> >> It also would've blocked registrations of new vehicles bought out of state.

Doesn't this sound insane to anybody? With that kind of a clause in the law all credibility is lost for whomever is sponsoring this bill.</comment>


Ask HN: Is it worth to build a TUI-based ERP software? - <AUTHOR> So, my company is about to begin a new project to deliver an ERP-like application.
There are currently no strict requirements regarding the technology stack to be used. Ease of deployment is desirable, but even that could be traded for, for instance, faster development times.
I'm a big fan of old-school text user interfaces, like the ones we used to have with Clipper.
I'm of course aware of its many limitations, but, to the best of my knowledge, its simplicity is unmatched by more recent technologies. So I'm seriously considering building a POC consisting of a web-based client operating as a specialized dumb terminal (performing some app-specific functions, like report printing, besides its basic terminal stuff), accessing the TUI-based main application in the server side.
We believe it's going to be possible to detect most of the limitations of such approach with that proof-of-concept, but I also considered asking the community looking for other ideas and limitations I may be ignoring at the moment. <comment><USER2> TUI for order entry or accounting sounds great (worked with such a system in the 90s, clerks achieved amazing speed using such a system, it would be all but impossible using "modern" web interface), but most of the reporting/dashboarding (i.e. high level views of the data) would be better in a more modern fashion. Under a TUI you could have something that communicates with the backend using modern web technologies, that sounds great :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, some of our main concerns are about user speed. We also know some concrete use cases where 3 decades old systems are still in place because none of the previous attempts at modernizing the application were able to allow for even half of the speed -- and, in one of those use cases, user speed was really, really mandatory.

When I talk about those cases, people usually argue that those systems are being used by "old farts" who will always resist to the change. However, it's really interesting to notice that even the younger users prefer those old systems because of their reliability and speed.

Overall, I think there's a huge misunderstanding about UX. I mean, things like Material Design animations and icons are nice but, in business applications, users want simply to query/input their stuff from/into the system and leave and go to do the rest of their jobs. They don't want to feel "pleased", they don't want to "experience" the software.

The software should operate as an extension of their minds and they don't even want to realize they are using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Depends on who the clients are. I've got a todo / schedule / calendar thats purely text. But thats just what I like.</comment>


JRuby, Resque and Windows - <AUTHOR> http://blog.logeek.fr/2010/8/2/on-jruby-resque-and-windows

<comment><AUTHOR> Some hopefully useful feedback from a project where I've mixed Ubuntu and Windows to do the job. Relies on Resque and JRuby.</comment>