Using Wikipedia in the classroom: a cautionary tale - <AUTHOR> http://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2014/05/05/using-wikipedia-in-the-classroom-a-cautionary-tale/ <comment><USER2> I may be an unpopular opinion, but Wikipedia doesn't work. It's ruled by people who don't have quality on their minds as much as power, politics, and maintaining their fiefdoms. It's not their "fault" either, because the system disproportionally rewards and empowers people who have these traits.

Encounters with Wikipedians are almost always toxic and unpleasant, be it to discuss changes to specific articles, discussions about policies, and even when it comes to throwing new ideas around on how the status quo could be improved. That's because they are generally very pleased with the status quo. People that weren't have been driven out long ago.

One of these days, I hope there will be a meaningful fork, and I hopefully article versions will simply be voted on.

Actually if anyone is interested in doing an experiment in this space, shoot me an email, I'd like to work on something like that.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious, why do you think voting on article versions will make it better?

<comment><USER2> Moving towards a meritocratic model would be one of many steps that are worth experimenting with, but it can't be the only one. Culture needs to be addressed specifically, though if the current Wikipedia population stays just where they are that could be a great start. There would of course have to be some technical changes as well.

<comment><USER4> How is that not a non-sequitur? I mean, what does _voting_ have to do with _meritocracy_ (usually, its considered characteristic of _democracy_ , not _meritocracy_.)

<comment><USER2> Yes, I used the wrong word for that. When I say meritocratic model, I mean a model where content rules based on its merit, not a statelike structure where individual people rule.

I'm talking about introducing a way to measure this merit. So I apologize for the misnomer that confused you. However, I'm hesitant to call such a system democratic either, though that might be a closer match.

Ideally, I'd like to decouple ego and personality from the act of content creation as much as possible - to the extend that is possible while still motivating people to work on it. So you see why I might describe this as having democratic or meritocratic traits, without actually being a *ocracy.

I'm also open to the idea of such a system being distributed, which would solve another problem Wikipedia has. If that's feasible, you might even be tempted to use terms such as adhocracy or federation. My beef with all these phrases is they're describing forms of government, whereas what I'm looking for is more a mode of content curation.

But let's talk about actual substance instead of nomenclature. I don't claim it's a silver bullet, but I think those are some ideas that may be worth experimenting with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems to be a story that happens a lot these days - someone tries to make changes to a Wikipedia article, the changes are reverted and they make a blog post or run to the media about how unfair Wikipedia is. There are about 3 paragraphs on the talk page on this. The student and the experienced editor went back and forth maybe 3 times. The fact that a high school student didn't make high quality edits to Wikipedia should not be super shocking, and the reversions were all justified by the reverter. Maybe there's a culture shock, but it's part of the Bold-Revert-Discuss cycle that is integral to Wikipedia quality control. You make changes without asking permission, if someone comes along and disagrees with the changes, they revert to the consensus version, then you discuss it and try to reach a consensus.

Frankly, this seems like a _perfect_ teaching tool - you've got someone right there willing to do the teaching for you, because they're engaging your student in a debate about the content of the material. Maybe the student doesn't get published along the way, but she can still get a grade, and she can learn the essential skill that is justifying her positions (or the equally important skill of accepting when you are wrong).

<comment><USER6> > This seems to be a story that happens a lot these days

Which could be an indication that there is also a problem with wikipedia. In particular, I think when someone takes a genuine effort to improve an article and that effort is reverted, there should be a clear indication of the reasons. In this case, whenever malte pointed to specific issues with the article, the student corrected them immediately.

> if someone comes along and disagrees with the changes, they revert to the > consensus version, then you discuss it and try to reach a consensus.

I don't see much effort to reach consensus on the editor's side. Most comments are in the style of "please read the rules before editing" \- which is not very helpful.

<comment><USER5> If anything the problem with Wikipedia causing this is a PR problem, not a problem with the culture of Wikipedia. The articles I see are usually of the form, "I don't edit Wikipedia, I thought it would be this way, but it's another way and that was unpleasant!" You're _always_ going to get that sort of situation - I could just as easily run to the media and say, "I tried posting a comment on HackerNews and it just dropped to the bottom of the comment stack and turned super light grey so that you could barely see it!" If these were well-formed arguments about the actual culture of Wikipedia and not just newbie-shock, it'd be a lot more understandable.

>I don't see much effort to reach consensus on the editor's side. Most comments are in the style of "please read the rules before editing" \- which is not very helpful.

I've said elsewhere here I think the whole situation would have been much more fruitful if the teacher had been or had engaged with an experienced Wikipedia editor to put these sorts of comments in the right context. Personally, I think the WP:SYNTH document is concise and clear enough that it isn't unreasonable to point to it after the reversion, but that's beside the point. The student has the option of continuing to make changes to their text to try and fix the problems the experienced editor pointed out, or if they think the changes are appropriate, go through another dispute resolution mechanism if the experienced editor is unwilling to budge. There are many such mechanisms, none of which were tried in this situation, because inexperienced editors don't know how to take advantage of them.

<comment><USER7> > the whole situation would have been much more fruitful if the teacher had > been or had engaged with an experienced Wikipedia editor

She did:

> I was put in touch with a Wikipedian here at the University of Michigan who > would be able to help

Now, to your other issue:

> the problem with Wikipedia causing this is a PR problem, not a problem with > the culture of Wikipedia.

Both problems exist, as the above refutation of your statement makes clear. There is denial among Wikipedians that there is a cultural problem, and that denial comes in the insidious form of not noticing facts that would counter your position.

There is also a public relations problem, in that people really, really need a stronger advisory before embarking on a Wikipedia edit that there is a measurable risk of reversion or deletion, and first contact with bureaucracy will almost certainly be unpleasant. To mitigate that, the new editor should be very strongly advised to skim the rules and expect the neutrality of the administration to feel harsh. Like coming up against laws of physics while rock-climbing harsh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If I understand correctly, the "Talk" page on Wikipedia also has an archived edit history.

I'm looking at the most recent version [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Super- spreader](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Super-spreader)] and the revisions [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Super- spreade...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Super- spreader&action=history)], and I'm having a hard time seeing the bullying---it looks like an individual defending an edit, another individual defending the revert with explanation of what is missing, and the first individual adding additional data to clarify that the original edit isn't "original research."

Can someone help highlight the bullying for me? Is there a subsection of the Talk history that I'm missing / can Talk history be deleted?

<comment><USER9> You kinda have to put it together, but the other author comes across to me as disingenuous and dismissive. Look at the edit log and the talk page together.

Wikipedian, 4/19: Deletes _one new section_ of the article that he disagrees with. Entire comment is: " (-1,214) . . (→Typhoid Mary: not a super- spreader. she was an asymptomatic carrier; super-spreaders are symptomatic)"

Student: 4/19: "There was dispute about whether or not asymptomatic carriers could be considered super-spreaders." Defends her position with un-Wikipedia- esque speech, reverts deletion.

Wikepedian: 4/20 _Deletes every single thing the student contributed_. (This is where things go off the rails.)

Wikipedian: "Also, I'm not aware of any "dispute as to whether or not asymptomatic carriers should be considered super-spreaders", so perhaps you could also provide a source for that."

The source of the dispute is that he reverted her edit; of course it exists.

The student then comes back with a source to defend that Typhoid Mary is considered a super carrier by serious sources, and gets no response.

Further, if you look at what the editor excised, it was a sincere edit, well- sourced, and deserved at least a modicum of respect for trying to help his pet project.

<comment><USER10> > Deletes every single thing the student contributed

Yes, this is what I don't understand. I think other commenters here haven't actually realised this is what happened, as well, and aren't seeing the problem.

One thing I find annoying about Wikipedia is that there is basically no owner or point of contact for the content. So, if I have an idea for a change, I can add a comment to the Talk page for the article, but it'll often languish there for months (years) on some pages. I've never gotten a sense of 'community' there, and although I've made 500+ edits and contributed new articles and been a member of a 'WikiProject' I still wouldn't class myself as a 'Wikipedian' nor would I know how to assign that role to someone else.

<comment><USER11> I've been a Wikipedia editor for ages, and I have noticed this. You can't wait around for other people to reply.

Generally if I'm about to do something potentially controversial, I write a comment on it in the talk thread, and then I go ahead and do it. If others have a problem with it they'll fix it. You kind of have to have a "ask for forgiveness" attitude towards non-active pages.

<comment><USER12> The wiki way is "bold, revert, discuss".

That is often catastrophic and will get you templates and warnings, and will make it very hard to push through any edits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was a Wikipedia campus ambassador for two courses - one at Boston College the other at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. The students were assigned to contribute to articles and my role was to help them navigate Wikipedia. I thought both courses went well - the BC class in particular had a professor who was very involved in selecting articles, having the students write drafts and reflect on their work. The students wrote a lot of good content and I had four or five of their articles featured on the Wikipedia home page's Did You Know section for new articles (More would have been featured but Wikipedia's rules for what qualifies are pretty arbitrary). There were three cases out of fifteen that were problematic - in two cases someone expanded the article while the students were working on their drafts, pre-empting their work, in the third case after the class had concluded some editors felt that the student's work misrepresented the topic and rewrote it. Overall the students wrote well-sourced, well-written content and I think they had a good experience.

<comment><USER5> Looking at this particular case, I'd say the experience would have been much better if the teacher had been an experienced Wikipedia editor or had contacted one of the projects that deals with this sort of thing ahead of time to put them in touch with a mentor editor. The article mentions that seniority is important (I've never found that to be the case), but what's actually important is understanding the kind of content that Wikipedia is looking for. In this case, the reversions were mostly because of "original research" violations, where the student synthesized new opinions out of the sources. This is something you'd do if you were writing a high school report on a topic, but on Wikipedia you're really only allowed to summarize what the sources say. Having someone who understands that around would have helped both student and teacher understand _why_ the material is being removed, and how it could be improved if they still wanted to contribute to the article.

<comment><USER7> You have a lot of thoughts about how this could have been done better. Have you passed any of these along to Professor Duffy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When I start a Wikipedia article, it gets expanded.

When I edit a Wikipedia article, it gets immediately reverted, often accompanied by ad hominem attacks on my character because the articles babysitter didn't want this or that section cluttering up his nice short little summary.

I am completely demoralized from editing Wikipedia, and though I still use it I SURELY won't be donating any of my time to helping that spectacle

<comment><USER11> I have an opposite experience. When I start an article, it gets flagged for deletion. Then I have to defend it.

If I expand an article no one seems to notice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It didn't take much imagination to realize that this problem with Wikipedia is a vast improvement over traditional encyclopedias. _Britannica_ would not have had an article, a public record of edits, or a way for a student to even participate in its improvement except perhaps via a few internships with limited responsibility well below authorship or editorial privilege.

It shows up on my computer, but it is still a human institution.

<comment><USER16> Somebody wasted their time and effort, had their feelings hurt, and was discouraged in their interests.

That's not an improvement over traditional encyclopedias.

<comment><USER8> Having your feelings hurt and appreciating (and overcoming) the sense of wasted time and effort is actually valuable experience for someone who is focused on academia (which one could infer, as the student in question was involved in an Honors Conversion).

A Wikipedia edit reversal is frustrating, but not as frustrating as a thesis pursuit or academic journal publication rejection. The takeaway I get from this story is actually that Wikipedia could serve as a lower-cost learning experience for budding young academics; the student got a real taste of having their input considered and rejected by a semi-anonymous stranger in a position of editorial power, which is a valuable (and hard) lesson to acquire at a young age.

<comment><USER7> > Wikipedia could serve as a lower-cost learning experience for budding young > academics; the student got a real taste of having their input considered and > rejected by a semi-anonymous stranger in a position of editorial power, > which is a valuable (and hard) lesson to acquire at a young age.

This should be standard Welcoming Committee text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Article makes it sound like the student was being shut out unfairly and that the entrenched editor was hostile or even sexist. This isn't borne out at all by the talk page. It looks like there was just an edit war and a call for citation, with further discussion pending.

<comment><USER18> If you check the history yourself, you'll see that _everything_ the student contributed was deleted _twice_ by the wikipedian. The contributions were not modified, simply everything completely removed.

<comment><USER19> I don't agree with it, but I could see how the author would justify those edits. The author rolled back edits that he/she felt were unfounded (whether or not they are is a topic for another debate). The student then reverted all those rollbacks without any discussion on the Talk page or edifying comments in their changes. The attempted discussion appears to have happened after this. The only difference between good- and bad-faith edits here is that the student does not understand Wikipedia policy.

Now, the way the original author responded is completely inappropriate given WP:DNB (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BITE). A couple people have already tried having that conversation with the author, and he/she still incorrectly feels the onus is on the (naive) editor.

<comment><USER18> Please do show how deleting everything that was contributed by the student can be justified (you say that you "could see how" the wikipedian "would justify" the reverts to the pre-student's-contribution-state of the article). I can't see, please see:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super- spreader&di...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super- spreader&diff=605103027&oldid=605102801)

Obviously the deleted material, that is, everything that the student previously contributed, contained the citations (on the left). Still _everything_ was deleted by the strange behaving wikipedian.

The difference I link to shows the effects of _the second deletion_ of the student's newly contributed material by the wikipedian. How can that be justified? I understand that the wikipedian didn't want the original research. But was it all really just the original research?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Before you frame this as a gender communication problem, I would consider actually talking to the Wikipedian you refer to in your article...

<comment><USER21> As far as I can tell both editors were female (at least, Malke is a female name).

<comment><USER20> Exactly those are the misconceptions you might clear up while talking to somebody ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well, look on the bright side, she only got bullied and reverted, whereas her hard work could have gotten the attention of the deletionists, and the entire page could have been wiped out. Why insult just one student by reverting, when you can insult an entire discipline by deleting?

</comment><comment><USER23> [http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whorunswikipedia](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whorunswikipedia) Who Runs Wikipedia? (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

</comment><comment><USER24> Quote from the article: "However, men tended to assert their opinions as "facts," whereas women tended to phrase their informative messages as suggestions, offers, and other non-assertive acts."

Seriously? This is just drivel.

I'm sorry her edits were undone, but that's hardly a gender issue.

Just try arguing with a feminist, then you won't see "informative messages phrased as suggestions, offers, and other non-assertive acts". In fact, that phrase disproves itself.

<comment><USER25> But it's not drivel. Men and women communicate differently, that's supported by many, many studies. She didn't accuse either sex of communicating incorrectly, which is the line you hear from SJWs.

I think she made a good point. Many people have commented that they thought his tone was fine. Others have said his tone sounded patronizing. I don't think anyone is wrong. We can't write off the people who don't share our communication style, which is what you're doing when you call it 'drivel'.

<comment><USER24> Can you point me to some of those studies, please?

It sounds extremely sexist to me to make such a claim. My experience with men has been different as well. Also my experience with women (they are not all timid about their opinions).

In any case, I don't see the relevance of the theory to the Wikipedia incident. So why does she quote it? Because the Wikipedia editor happens to be male, and the quote is supposed to discredit all male opinions.

She wrote a whole blog article about it - is that an example of "an informative messages phrased as a suggestion, offer, or other non-assertive acts"? I don't think so - she disproves the theory, yet you defend it.

If you are a woman, you also disprove the theory, because you claim a fact: "But it's not drivel. Men and women communicate differently, that's supported by many, many studies." That's not a suggestion, offer, or non-assertive comment you made.

<comment><USER26> You could follow the link supplied by the author, and references therein....

<comment><USER24> That only cites studies of the author herself, who analyzed a whopping two mailing lists to arrive at her sweeping and completely unbiased conclusions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm sorry but I'm sick of f@#$wit teachers thinking Wikipedia is a fun project for their students.

It is supposed to be the repository of human knowledge.

Not the quality such that a student 'learning' about a subject can do an assignment of editing it.

When this student has long gone, it's the Wikipedians who have to clean up the mess.

What real Wikipedians do is clean up vandalism, correct spelling and grammar, arbitrate differences of opinion.

They don't just sit around creating content then leave.

If you really want to help Wiki, work on teaching students the politics and how to do the real work that's needed to make it so great.

<comment><USER21> Actually, if you look at this article you'll see that it did need expanding, and the student's edits were mostly an improvement. There were a few issues with sourcing our synthesis, but nothing major.

In my opinion we need to get more people like this involved in editing, rather than pushing them away. There are lots of articles that need help, and it's a great learning experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I made similar experiences and heard stories worse than this all over the web. It may sound funny, but Wikipedia could learn a lot from games like LoL and Dota 2 and how they deal with bad behaviour. Right now I don't see anything happen, and that's the reason why I willfully deny Wikipedia any donation.</comment>


Show HN: Clipped – Summarize Anything - <AUTHOR> http://clipped.me

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys - Founder here. I started Clipped 2 years ago in my Freshman year of high school. It's been a great journey and I'd love to get your comments/feedback: tanay[at]clipped.me</comment>


Free electron laser – A fourth-generation synchrotron light source [video] - <AUTHOR> https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-8832-free_electron_lasers <comment><USER2> This machine is the stringing together major physics, optical, and electronic discoveries of the past century or so into a precision machine with incredible new capabilities. From the electron sources, the RF technologies, vacuum and supercon technology, the Bremstrellung (sp?), to the photon grouping, to the obviously advanced detectors with enormous parallel data throughput. One of the best talks I have seen. Bravo.

<comment><USER3> >Bremstrellung (sp?)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> CCC.DE is slow for me, here's a youtube link to same video. Worth watching!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKqof77pKBc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKqof77pKBc)

</comment><comment><USER5> I saw the talk live and the nerdism, physicians humor and the transfered knowledge was really mind blowing. It's an awesome insight into the foundation and building of a really large human made machine. Watch!

<comment><USER6> It would've been even better without the unnecessary political commentary.

<comment><USER3> I was at the talk. What political commentary are you even talking about?

<comment><USER7> Not sure how the parent would respond, but early on, while discussing Rosalind Franklin's DNA diffraction findings, he makes an unnecessary comment about the Nobel prize going to "the two white men." It seemed out of place compared to the rest of his talk.

I didn't feel like the talk gave off an overtly political tone.

The New England Journal of Medicine on the other hand...cancelled my subscription due to how political it has become. Still has very good review articles, though.

<comment><USER8> Silence is political too, you just don't notice because you agree with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The dig at the beginning that "white men" got 1962 the Nobel prize for DNA instead Rosalind Franklin was cringey and factually incorrect. Frankin died in 1958 and the Nobel prize is not awarded posthumously. Had she lived she would have gotten it too, there is no question about that.

<comment><USER10> While the Nobel prize is indeed not awarded posthumously, the characterization of Rosalind Franklin being unfairly dispossessed of credit is very reasonable.

Watson and Crick achieved great fame for "Discovering the double helix structure of DNA". Their original paper:

1) contained no experimental data

2) does not cite Franklin

3) was based on her as-yet unpublished X-ray crystallography

<comment><USER11> Not sure if this was due to a clash of personalities between Wilkins and Franklin or due to gender issues. Considering that there were many women active in British crystallography (Dorothy Hodgkin, Olga Kennard, Eleanor Dodgson, Kathleen Lonsdale, to name a few) I think it really was a personality issue, and the "white men" was unnecessary, even wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I watched the video and then clapped at the end.

There has been tremendous effort to make the presentation and explain the mechanics that led to the XFEL.

Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER13> Incredible video. I'm a software engineer but I feel I know so much more about physics now.

</comment><comment><USER14> I agree with all the other comments - this is an excellent video.

Does anyone know how the slides were made? Some of the animations are rather lovely. They look like they were made by a professional TV media company. I'm guess this is not the case.

</comment><comment><USER15> He mentioned that protein crystals are hard to create. There have been experiments to grow them in space. That possibility could open up soon.

<comment><USER16> Here's a collage of protein crystals grown in space in 2000.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Protein_crystals_grown_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Protein_crystals_grown_in_space.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Worth watching just for the visualization of how accelerating electrons leads to radiation emission.

</comment><comment><USER18> Anyone else having problems with the audio?

</comment><comment><USER19> Watched all the video.

Really Great.

Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER20> I still don't understand why we need such a thing. Every single interaction that is involved with protein folding or any chemical or molecular process can be calculated "ab initio" via QED (Quantum Electro Dynamics). So why not just build big computers and be done with it? If there is any macroscopic effect that can be exploited, we still can prove that the theory works and won't need a super powerful FEL for it.

<comment><USER21> The main problem is scaling. In quantum chemistry, you need electron correlation to get accurate results (comparing your ab initio with experiments) and these methods scale quite badly. Somewhat state-of-the-art CCSD(T) (coupled cluster singles and doubles with triple excitations approximated by perturbation theory) scales formally as N^7, with N being the number of electrons in your system (somewhat simplified). Proteins are huge. Even with some of the newest nearly linear-scaling coupled-cluster methods (which utilize GPUs) running calculations on proteins takes extremely long time. And this is _just_ electron correlation methods. We're still using the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, not taking all excitaions into account, using a finite size basis set, ignoring relativistic effects, not thinking about time evolution and (most of the time) not considering (explicit) solvent effects.

We are still a long way from modelling protein folding in solution with 100% quantum mechanics. Luckily, classical molecular dynamics are quite good at modelling biochemical systems (to a degree). There are a ton of errors that a much bigger than quantum (and relativistic) effects anyway.

<comment><USER20> Ok now I understand why we need such a thing, thank you very much. My knowledge does not go beyond good old Hatree-Fock on that matter. I thought this is a legitimate question because in theory this device is not build to discover any new physics which I would expect from such a facility.

Edit: Followup question, is it possible to build a ProteinFoldingCoin? Can the problems of theoretical chemistry formulated in a way that is hard to calculate and easy to verify, hence replacing the useless sha256 calculations in Bitcoin with something that makes sense?

<comment><USER21> >is it possible to build a ProteinFoldingCoin?

I've thought about it, but don't think it's possible. Basically quantum chemical methods like Hartree-Fock or Coupled Cluster is a question of finding eigenvalues to some very very large matrices and/or solving non-linear equation. Verifying a solution (such as electron correlation energy) can, to my knowledge, only be done by using the result and checking if the equations are still valid, which pretty much is just doing the whole work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I admittedly didn't visit the link, but I think it's pretty sweet that i can get one of these "electron lasers" for free.

<comment><USER22> wow, you folks hate jokes. It wasn't even an offensive one.

<comment><USER23> Wordplay jokes are very low on the comedy sophistication scale, just above puns, bodily functions, and inherently funny words.

HN is just a tough room. You really have to step it up a notch or two, just to not get downvoted. For example, this is probably not quite good enough:

Electron emancipation is fine and good, but electrons will never _truly_ be free until they have the vote.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Cereal Has Such Aggressive Marketing - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/how-marketers-invented-the-modern-version-of-breakfast/487130/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> things that were/are aggressively advertized:

* soda

* cigarettes

* cereal

* TV

* FB

What do they have in common ?</comment>


Browser Speed Tests: Firefox 7, Chrome 14, Internet Explorer 9, and More - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browser-speed-tests-firefox-7-chrome-14-internet-explorer-9-and-more <comment><USER2> I see this benchmark as a joke. And not a funny one. Ps. I cannot stand bar graphs that does not start from zero.</comment>


WebRTC Broken Telephone for Node Knockout    - <AUTHOR> http://cuttleblog.tumblr.com/post/66991737259/brokentele

<comment><USER2> Meh, not the best use of WebRTC and I definitely wouldn't trust anyone to tweet form my account.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty funny game, more like Russian roulette than broken telephone.

<comment><USER4> Haha true! On mobile so no WebRTC I verified and submitted a tweet though and now to play the waiting game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> No one online to play with, maybe I'll check back later.

</comment><comment><USER6> Loving all the WebRTC posts lately.

<comment><USER7> Yeah there's been a lot lately, anyone know why?</comment></comment>


Windows PowerShell Cookbook - <AUTHOR> http://powershell.labs.oreilly.com/

<comment><USER2> I've been using this for the past couple of years in my day job. The ability to pull in .NET assemblies is very powerful and is a real godsend in a Microsoft environment.

</comment><comment><USER3> Powershell is nice, functionality-wise, but it still suffers from the fact that the shell UI is horrible. It's the same basic application that cmd.exe is, with the same limitations. You can't easily do even basic things like copy and paste. In some ways, its more advanced than bash, but in the important ways it's not.

<comment><USER4> > You can't easily do even basic things like copy and paste.

Yes you can, and you have been able to since PS1. PS2 CTP 2 has method completion and a split input/output frame too (and I'm a Linux guy).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Powershell makes me think Bash.NET. Not sure how to take it.

<comment><USER4> A large part of Bash is based on piping to text filters. Powershell is based on piping to where, which filters objects by their properties. Ie, content is separate from presentation. It a common criticism of Unix by people who know it well.</comment></comment>


Camera+ hits 2 million sales / Revealing details about in-app purchase sales - <AUTHOR> http://taptaptap.com/blog/cameraplus-hits-2-million-sales/ <comment><USER2> Clealy not the norm. But it's nice to see some hard numbers. I think if you're in the top 25 apps in any particular category you're probably doing pretty well (exception being some of the lesser visited categories).

That said, I believe it's incredibly difficult to get yourself into a position where you're really making a solid income from your app on the App Store. With so many apps vying for attention you truly need to make your app unique and extremely solid or you risk being forgotten or never seen.

I think the best way to gain momentum is to be the type of app that can be advertised via word of mouth. I don't think I've ever seen Camera+ advertised anywhere (my memory isn't that great so maybe I have seen it) but the word of mouth in various forum posts is incredible. At least at the start this can really help. Once you have some traction and in the top 25 you get the benefit of some Apple advertising via the featured app section (hopefully) and sales take off a bit more for you.

I really think Android will never have this type of sales volume for paid apps. It is pretty incredible what Apple has done with the App Store, and what developers have done with it.

<comment><USER3> You're right: they don't do conventional advertising anymore. Here's a blog about their strategy: [http://taptaptap.com/blog/kill-yr-ads-the-donts-of- iphone-ap...](http://taptaptap.com/blog/kill-yr-ads-the-donts-of-iphone-app- marketing/)

Also, look at those Daring Fireball prices in that blog post! I'm jealous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I put my first In-App purchases into my app, which went live last Friday. They let you upgrade the app to be identical to the premium version. (Or you can just update the pieces you want)

I have sold ZERO In-App purchases so far, despite my downloads of the free version still going very strong.

Perhaps I've done something terribly wrong...

<comment><USER5> Due the generally-scummy nature of the majority of in-app purchasing apps I've run across, I've personally disabled in-app purchasing. I also generally recommend the same to others (particularly those with children), and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this.

I would absolutely rather buy a separate paid version than pay in-app to upgrade a 'lite' version.

<comment><USER6> I'd liken the current state of Apps, both Android and iOS to 1998-era PC/internet maturity, with annoying ads everywhere, popups flying at you every click, games that interrupt you with non-closable advertising screens, low quality shareware or shovelware feel, etc.

I think these practices are only hurting themselves, as I'm pretty adverse to downloading an advertisement that _might_ deliver the app functionality promised nowadays. My Android phone has maybe a half-dozen apps installed that aren't published by Google. I've only had an iPad for a week, but it hasn't faired much better.

<comment><USER5> > _"I've only had an iPad for a week, but it hasn't faired much better."_

I can't say I've ever noticed the experience you're describing on iOS. Not even with "Lite" apps.

<comment><USER6> Try downloading a calculator for the iPad.

Edit: Another annoying practice, I _purchased_ Angry Birds Seasons for the iPad, yet it still has giant in-app advertising for Bing between levels, that if you accidentally click it, it will try to change your Safari search provider.

<comment><USER7> PCalc is absolutely wonderful, both the Lite version and the paid version, and the Lite version has no banners, only an option in the settings to upgrade.

It's the second free calculator in my search results when I search for "calculator".

Discoverability is not great but there are plenty of awesome apps on the App Store, some free but you have to be willing to pay if you want quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That huge jump in weekly sales starting in 2/14 seems to line-up with the iPhone 4 release on Verizon. If that launch was a main driver for Camera+ sales, the magnitude is impressive.</comment>


Have Your Postgres Cake with Amazon Redshift and Eat It, Too - <AUTHOR> https://www.intermix.io/blog/using-amazon-redshift-with-amazon-rds/ <comment><USER2> The post describes how you're using an OLAP database like Amazon Redshift in an OLTP use case. The magic is done via using dblink and Amazon RDS. Why would you do that? You can build an analytics app and productize it.</comment>


Logitech app turns your iPhone into wireless trackpad or keyboard - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/01/logitech-app-turns-your-iphone-into-wireless-trackpad-or-keyboar/

<comment><USER2> Oh haha, the last line of the article says "let us know how it goes in comments once you give it a roll." Engadget has comments disabled right now :D Funny.</comment>


Bill Would Legitimize White House Secrecy and Clear the Way for Anti-User Deals - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/fasttrack-bill-legitimize-white-house-secrecy-and-clear-way-anti-user

<comment><USER2> Is anyone else almost impressed with how good Congress seems to be at talking any sort of actual citizen-friendly bills to death while miraculously coordinating itself to pass terrible laws that protect them with bipartisan support?

If it wasn't so sad, I'd be impressed.

<comment><USER3> I've just finished reading Chomsky's "How the World Works". I'll quote a relevant section about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The behaviour, in my opinion, seems roughly consistent with what we are seeing now:

        In 1974, the Trade Act was passed by Congress. One of its
        provisions was that the Labor Advisory Committee -- which
        is based in the unions -- had to have input and analysis
        on any trade-related issue. Obviously that committee had
        to report on NAFTA, which was an executive agreement
        signed by the president.

        The Labor Advisory Committee was notified in mid-August 1992
        that their report was due on September 8, 1992. However, they
        weren't given a text of the agreement until about 24 hours
        before the report was due. That meant they couldn't even
        convene, and they obviously couldn't write a serious report
        in time.

        Now these are conservative labor leaders, not the kind of
        guys who criticize the government much. But they wrote a
        very acid report. They said that, to the extent that we can
        look at this in the few hours given to us, it looks like it's
        going to be a disaster for working people, for the
        environment, for Mexicans -- and a great boon for investors.

        The committee pointed out that although treaty advocates
        said it won't hurt many American workers, maybe just
        unskilled workers, their definition of "unskilled worker"
        would include 70% of the workforce. The committee also
        pointed out that property rights were being protected all
        over the place, but workers' rights were scarcely mentioned.
        The committee then bitterly condemned the utter contempt for
        democracy that was demonstrated by not giving the committee
        the complete text ahead of time.

On a related note, if anyone is interested in reading more about the Investor- State Dispute Settlement provisions of these "Free Trade" agreements, there's an interesting perspective from Chief Justice RS French, from the High Court of Australia:

[http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/curren...](http://www.hcourt.gov.au/assets/publications/speeches/current- justices/frenchcj/frenchcj09jul14.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sadly, this just formalizes what has been the norm for a while now.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am sick of Bill. We need to vote him out of office.

</comment><comment><USER6> I feel the legal language we are using for ultimately basic sharing and stealing, is being explained poorly psychotechnologically.

Forms of speech and trade are parallels that lay users can speak to the fact too, if we stop covering our own secret terms of service by example, we can lead transparent community audits.

Common users know their bits of speech are being compromised but are suffering to realize empathy from social issues explained as technical difficulties by privileged discourse.

If we begin to talk deeply about the age-old problem of ownership and accountability, with the respect for granularity so present in our best open source research and development intelligence initiatives' commitments, we can cognitively reframe to help cope and deal with pro-user people power.

Right now we pretend objectification is rooted abstractly, when we find hidden language of trauma is visible but pain metadata too great to define, we forget that tracking and auditing empowerment is realistic, only if we social structure realistening and sharing to every bit of systemic secrefice.

<comment><USER7> I'm almost convinced this is a Markov-chain bot or similar stochastic process.

<comment><USER8> Indeed: [http://biteracy.com/](http://biteracy.com/)

<comment><USER6> ([https://www.facebook.com/search/str/%23biteracy/keywords_top](https://www.facebook.com/search/str/%23biteracy/keywords_top) (I am not biteracy.com)

You can ask me to talk with camera, keyboard, or voice, I am easily background checked, I am at [https://matrix.org/beta/#/room/#Biteracy:matrix.org](https://matrix.org/beta/#/room/#Biteracy:matrix.org) / [http://web.archive.org/*/https://news.ycombinator.com/user?i...](http://web.archive.org/*/https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pain))

<comment><USER7> (Bots can ape humans by playing out scripts.)

<comment><USER6> ((Standard grammar reps can ape sense.)) )

Why reattach to attacking who is writing it before asking anything about what I actually worded? That is the literacy problem.

Judgemental life script doctors? How do we know self-determinate order if we are telling people why their words form before asking logically for sense?

"The robots are already here, and they're called [social structures and empathic dictation]. Be very very scared. Don't ask when it will happen. It's already happened." —Tim Berners-Lee

<comment><USER8> Are you writing in a different language and then translating to English? The point is the text makes no sense coming from a human.

<comment><USER6> Bitcism. Linguism/Linguicism is the real language abuse.

(Other audit history change logging of this comment at [http://web.archive.org/save/https://news.ycombinator.com/ite...](http://web.archive.org/save/https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9392449) / [http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1429308900036808&date=%4...](http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1429308900036808&date=%400&fromform=1) / [https://archive.today/q514R](https://archive.today/q514R))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just when you thought you could count on the Republicans to stonewall...

<comment><USER8> The one benefit of having executive and legislative branches at odds is at least nothing gets done, and nothing these days seems a heck of a lot better than whatever 'something' they do come up with.

I totally understand the downvotes. But wow is it frustrating that _this_ is the one piece of $&%! our representatives actually _agree_ on?

<comment><USER9> > But wow is it frustrating that this is the one piece of $&%! our > representatives actually agree on?

Do you think it's a coincidence?

But, it seems like it's Republicans siding with Obama _against_ Congressional Democrats. I'm not so naive as to not think of, or discount, electioneering as the reason for that, however.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How much time/effort did Heartbleed cost your team? - <AUTHOR>

Looking for time or dollar impact of Heartbleed on your team:<p>1. < hour 2. Hours 3. Days 4. Weeks 5. Unknown <comment><USER2> Probably around 1-2 man-hours directly. The first bit was myself and my coworker running around trying to figure out what this was and how big of a deal after seeing the post on HN. I manually patched a few non-essential systems to make sure the patches took without a huge dependency tree update, then my coworker rolled it out automatically to all the systems.

We spent some follow up time checking Amazon's site to make sure our ELBs were updated (because it wasn't by the time we patched) and sending out the post- mortem to the team. Our certs were already going to expire, so we renewed them and updated them again via automation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Applying the security update took minutes, even on a large number of hosts, thanks to automation.

The harder part was working out how to treat things from there, did we need to assume we'd been hit in the past, and regenerate certificates? That took a good couple of hours of debate with different people.

Call it half a day to be generous.

</comment><comment><USER4> We run + manage our own servers, have ~4 dedicated servers and a large amount of VPSes. We lost about 7 man-days patching, cleaning up, updating certs, PR, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> About a half-day of work. Fixing our systems went pretty quick, but had to go track down a lot of clients' accounts and systems to rekey their certs.

</comment><comment><USER6> I spent couple of hours for installing the patch, sending users security alert email and updating users' dashboard with security alert.

</comment><comment><USER7> About 10 minutes. Just had to check and see if we had an affected version.

</comment><comment><USER8> 1-2 hours of my time.

</comment><comment><USER9> few hours for our sysadmin, I suppose.</comment>


Prisoners of Korean War - <AUTHOR> http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2017/04/166_27869.html <comment><USER2> This content seems like it is a random selection from a larger work. It finishes in an incomplete way, and it has no references.</comment>


Tesla will soon downgrade software on the entry-level Model 3 - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2019/06/08/tesla-model-3-software-downgrade/ <comment><USER2> So the trial period for the full version is over. Enjoy the features included in the standard license.

I get market segmentation and having optional features in a car. But most car companies don't actually integrate a seat heater if you didn't order one. Lugging the weight of the extra hardware for these features around but being blocked from using them at all feels wromg to me.

<comment><USER3> The Lexus IS300 and IS350 both have the exact same engine, only the 300 is detuned to not be as fast. You can do an after-market ECU tune and end up with the exact same performance as a 350.

I don't understand why they decided to make two models out of the same engine.

<comment><USER4> More powerful engines are less reliable. Motorcycle makers get twice the specific power out of their engines compared to cars, but the engines won't last 100k miles or even 50k and they require frequent major maintenance. Car buyers are no longer willing to ever have their car in the shop so most mainstream cars are very detuned. High-strung engines that need maintenance are a niche market.

<comment><USER5> Motorcycle engines are largely not scaled down car engines tuned for performance at the expense of reliability. They are designs built from scratch under different constraints. A mid-level motorcycle engine from a Japanese manufacturer should last _longer_ than a mid-level car from a Japanese manufacturer, all else being equal.

There are motorcycles that you buy facing the near certainty that it will most likely outlive you, like KLR 650, or you can get a Ducati with a Desmosedici Stradale in it, where you have to get valves adjusted (major service) every 2500 miles. But given timely service, no motorcycle will last less than 50k miles, and most will last above 100 before an engine block rebuild.

Comparing cars to cars, or motorcycles to motorcycles, the logic holds though.

<comment><USER6> Mid-level Japanese car engines can go waaay longer than 100k before an engine block rebuild. I had a Mazda 3 over 200k with no major service (A/C died...I left it dead)

<comment><USER7> In Australia it's not uncommon for Toyota 22R engines to run for 400Kkm before needing a rebuild.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This wasn't Tesla's plan from the beginning.

This is the history of how that happened.

In 2016 Tesla announced Model 3 and took a risk by pre-announcing that the price will start at $35.

In late 2017 they started making the cars and until early 2019 they were only making the more expensive Long Range trim at $50k+.

Sometime late 2018 / early 2019 they introduced a Medium Range trim, which was Long Range with smaller batter for $40-something k. This trim is no longer available (replaced by SR+)

Around march 2019, after hard-core cost-cutting, they introduced the base models as $35 SR (Standard Range) and $37.5 SR+ (Standard Range plus).

Compared to original plans SR/SR+ was better in that it included the panoramic glass sunroof.

The SR+ was available immediately but SR had a 4-6 month lead time, presumably so that Tesla can improve production / operational efficiency enough so that they can make SR trim at a profit.

According to Tesla, few people were ordering SR so they decided to scrap that trim. That makes sense because the fewer variants they have to make, the better they can optimize the production process and the cheaper it is to make the cars.

To fulfill those SR orders they decided to give people SR+ trim and limit features in software. It took them a while to implement those limits hence for a while people who ordered SR were able to drive SR+ without the limits.

This is not the end of story.

Soon after they decided to make $3k AutoPilot a standard feature and bumped the price by $2k.

After that they bumped the price by additional $400, presumably to offset the cost of Trump's tarrifs.

And that's where we are today.

Tesla just rolls with the punches. Making the cheapest version be a software- limited wasn't the original plan but it's a reasonable decision given how things progressed.

I think it's safe to say that at some point in the future Tesla will lower the price if their production capacity outstrips the supply and they manage to further improve operational efficiency.

<comment><USER9> Honestly, nobody(except the fanbois) cares about the story or Tesla's original intention. All that matters is what they are _actually_ doing. And what they're actually doing is skeevy.

<comment><USER10> Reading the parent makes it sound exceptionally skeevy. I tend to distrust a company that will spend money to make sure that their customers 'don't get something for free' when the cost is already sunk.

<comment><USER11> This expectation of yours does not sound reasonable. If a bakery has made 100 croissants, should they give them for free after breaking even, because the cost has been sunk anyway?

(Yes they can give them away for charity if they want, but that is charity, not business)

<comment><USER12> Generally there is an expectation in business that mistakes made by the business are to the benefit of the customer.

For instance, if you order 3 croissants but the bakery puts 5 in your box and seals the box, and then you walk out the shop, what would you do if the bakery employee comes running down the street after you and demands you open the box and return the extra 2 croissants? Well this would never happen, the business would just write it off and let the customer have the two extra croissants.

<comment><USER13> Tesla didn't make a mistake. It's more like a trial period in software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Really not sure why everyone is up in arms over this. The person buying the car knows exactly what they are buying when they order it. They just got some upgrades for free that they didn't pay for to try for a little bit. I think its great that Tesla includes them and is able to unlock them via software. The alternative is if you bought the low end car and later decided to upgrade you'd have to bring your car in, they'd have to tear apart seats/etc to upgrade the hardware, remove an old battery to put in a new one, etc. The system as it stands now may seem a little weird that you actually have hardware you didn't pay for but it's not unlike upgrading to get more features on some other service.

The fact of the matter again is the people who bought the cars after this update will get exactly what they paid for. If they want the upgraded version they could have either bought it from the start, or they can still upgrade.

<comment><USER15> The fact that Tesla can effectively modify "your" car _after you bought it_ , to disable things that it can clearly do, is what's really troubling here.

<comment><USER14> They can also modify it to add features. I have a Model S I bought before auto pilot was released. I had prepaid for it though so when it was ready I got it. And over the years other features that weren't even announced I also got for free. It goes both ways. So is it troubling they can modify the car to add functionality?

I get it if they are modifying it to remove something you paid for, but that is NOT the case here.

<comment><USER9> Whether the updates are beneficial or enervating, the ability to modify what should be my car is precisely the reason I will never own a Tesla.

<comment><USER14> Your loss. Have had a Model S for almost 4 years and it is absolutely amazing.

Also I probably should point out that when the updates come out it is still up to the user, at least to some extent on whether they want to upgrade or not. I think it turns into a snooze game though but I know there were people that held out for years on software updates because they liked the old UX better. So you don't HAVE to update, its just pretty much universally preferred to upgrade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For those who haven't had a chance to read it yet, Richard Stallman's "The Right to Read" from 1997:

[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to- read.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html)

There are some striking thematic parallels with the current state of automotive technology -- in particular Tesla.

<comment><USER15> Cory Doctorow's "Car Wars" is also very relevant: [http://this.deakin.edu.au/culture/car- wars](http://this.deakin.edu.au/culture/car-wars)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a case where Tesla would be better off owning up to its failures. They shipped a product slightly better than customers ordered. That's on them, especially when they're doing the downgrade a year+ later. Imagine if a dealership came back after a year and told you "actually, you didn't pay for the package with the heated seats."

Not sure what Tesla PR was thinking on this one, especially when the cost (but not opportunity cost) is $10 per month for the music. All I've got is that Tesla's looking between the cushions for cash.

<comment><USER18> How would this be different from, say, a SaaS tool provider realizing I was being charged for their "basic" plan I signed up for, while inadvertently receiving their "premium" plan, and emailing me to inform me they've noticed the error and are correcting it?

<comment><USER17> The main difference is the sense of possession you get with something you paid a one-time fee for. The -aaS model is a fee for _service_ model, so you expect to be billed accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There was a tweet by pg that Tesla is really a software company - that seems to be playing out more and more. They're basically making the car hardware only for sake of vertical integration, same as with Apple's phones. Both companies are also developing chips for the same reasons, with the same revolving door of employees as well.

If this perspective normalizes it's quite possible that we'll see cars that offer in-app upgrades / features on subscription as well. You could rent extended range for just your trips, and Tesla has already been known to temporarily enable it for everyone in the case of emergencies.

<comment><USER20> Putting unnecessary hardware in cars may be costly, which is why traditional car companies don't do this, or at least rarely do this.

At the same time Tesla doesn't produce enough cars to make it worthwhile to make the production process that flexible. There are costs associated with having different parts to manage and streamlining your assembly line to handle it. Additionally you have to develop, test, produce these additional parts which also costs money. If they become one of the big car manufacturers at some point it will become worth it to specialize the hardware more. Right now software is easier and cheaper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Customers might also lose access to Tesla's onboard music streaming service > and heated seats, among other upgrades, though they'll have to wait until > the software lock comes out to know which ones they're losing for sure.

Heated seats disabled in software?!

<comment><USER22> My goodness! Next you'll tell me you're paying more for more GHz from the same processor just because of QA/bin sorting! /s

Anyway, price differentiation without a hardware delta is how you meet your margin forecasts. Legitimate business strategy.

<comment><USER23> That's a poor analogy; when you pay more for a processor that's more highly binned, you are actually getting something physically superior. Tesla bins their motors (or did at one point).

If you're going to do the sarcastic reply thing, at least make it insightful. Or funny.

<comment><USER24> > actually getting something physically superior

Sometimes, sometimes not. What you are getting is a chip that passed more rigorous tests. That the lower end products have (or would have) failed those tests is not guaranteed. Companies can and do sell identical silicon as less capable products.

<comment><USER23> Yes, sometimes the yields are too good and there are an overabundance of chips that can be sold as high end. Pentiums with cache defects are sold as Celerons, but in a pinch, a Pentium might be sold as a Celeron.

Intel at one stage dipped their toes in the water of what would be a close analogy; your chip comes with half of its cache software disabled, and you pay $50 to unlock it.

They stopped pretty quickly, but I don't think it was from the inevitable tech community backlash. It was that it economically made no sense at Intel's scale - the alternative was to fab a new line of chips with less cache to start with.

[https://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to- charge-50...](https://www.engadget.com/2010/09/18/intel-wants-to-charge-50-to- unlock-stuff-your-cpu-can-already-d/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Feels really weird. These are the earliest customers for Model 3, wouldn't it be good & cheap PR for Tesla to say "these customers got more than they paid for, but we'll 'grandfather' them into the perks"?

I would expect the positive EV (expected value) on the 'grandfather' option to be obvious, unless Tesla is really strapped for cash.

<comment><USER26> These are not the earliest customers of the model 3. These are the ones that waited an extra year or so for the cheapest model. They were informed about the features they would get, but ended up with free, but temporary upgrades.

<comment><USER27> Did the earliest customer get something that others didn't? But yeah, Tesla is tight on cash these days...

<comment><USER26> Yes, free supercharging for one. But as Tesla matures and starts entering markets with lower profit margins, things need to be more cost efficient.

I don't think of Tesla being hard on cash, just that they are pouring every $ they have into expansion. They could just slow down and being profitable would be much easier.

Personally I'd slow growth and take out less loans, but they would slow down the transformation of the automobile industry from ICE to electric. It does seem to be working, with the competition continuing to claims "You can't make a competitive electric car", then "you can't make a competitive luxury sedan", then "you can't make a small sedan at a lower price point". Now pretty much the entire industry is chasing Tesla. Sure now there's some competition from Chevy (the bolt), Jaguar (the i-pace), Audi (e-tron), Mercedes, Porsche, and many others. None particularly competitive... yet.

Even if Tesla implodes tomorrow, they have pushed the market to an amazing degree. Personally I'm most impressed with the model 3 performance. Small, fun, fast, tons of storage room, very efficient, and often wins against a BMW M3, not just at 0-60 (a strong point of electric cars), but also on the track.

Electric cars get rid of pretty much all the compromises of a sports sedan. No loss of storage space with the transmission hump that divides the car in two. No increased friction and substantial weight increase for AWD. No huge hood to contain a large engine. No terrible gas mpg. Low center of gravity means no punishing suspension to try to keep the car from rolling in the corners. No loud noises from performance oriented tires, engines, and exhausts. Basically you can get a practical every day driver that matches the best BMW on the track.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is the first thing I've seen Tesla do that was shitty with regard to customers. Tarnishes their image.

Something about selling someone a car with all of the physical hardware required for something and then locking it out sometime after the sale using software seriously bothers me. Who owns the car, really? Is it Tesla or is it me?

Stupid move. They stand to gain almost no money from this.

I may be ignorant about Tesla's business practices if there's worse. I also own a Model S not a 3.

<comment><USER19> It's unfair not to do it - there are customers who paid extra for the upgrade, it's not fair to give it to everyone for free, but a trial period seems reasonable.

<comment><USER28> The thing is it was not a trial period. There already exists trial periods in Tesla vehicles. They're explicit and give you time remaining. You know exactly what is happening.

Instead, what happened is Tesla couldn't provide the configuration of cars that people wanted because it wasn't economical for them to do so. So instead they sent them another model of the vehicle with different hardware. It was a stop gap solution. It appears that many people were unaware either by their own lack of attention, or because they were mislead, or because Tesla didn't make it clear enough what was happening.

So:

1\. Tesla offered to sell a product.

2\. People bought the product.

3\. Tesla realized it was not economical to sell the product.

4\. Tesla decided not to manufacture the product that they offered.

5\. Tesla gave the customers a different product in order to retain the sale rather than cancel the orders. (Even to the degree that the sales documentation refers to the product as SR+ and not SR.)

6\. Months pass.

7\. Tesla develops software that will after-the-fact modify the product that customers were provided.

Tesla is part and parcel of the problem here. This "it's not fair" rings hollow to me.

<comment><USER26> Tesla could have made customers wait, cancel the product, and upsell them.... which would be quite unpopular.

Instead they told users, we can sell you a better car today, but then at some point it will behave just like the car you ordered.

Seems less than idea, but seems like Tesla made the best of the situation.

The problem is they brought out two cars at $35k and $40k and tried to predict how many people would take both options. Turns out way more people took the nav, traffic, streaming audio, better range/battery etc. So much so that it wasn't worth making a custom car for the few people that bought the $35k model.

So instead of cancelling orders they decided to software limit the $35k car, and people got what they ordered with a bonus till the software got updated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Tesla promised a $35K car, and took orders for it. But they can't make one that sells profitably at that price. They really, really don't want buyers ordering the base model.

<comment><USER26> No car manufacturer does. It's much like going to a fast food place and ordering just a hamburger. The profit on the burger is very low, but the profit on french fries and soda is sky high. So the fast food places push the meal bundles.

Because of the profit on options is sky high (often a few $$$ of materials can cost $1000s), it's getting increasingly common that a cars options can substantially increase the cost of a car.

Luxury cars have been feeding this cycle and it's actually refreshing that Tesla has so few options. BMW drove me crazy with an incredible and quite complicated system with numerous incompatibilities designed to upsell you. Things like the tires/wheels being linked to the steering wheel upgrade, which is linked to the performance seats, etc. What was maddening that features on lower end cars (like power lift gate, bluetooth, and decent headlights) are many $1,000s in a luxury vehicle. NHTSA recently blasted various luxury car makers for lousy headlights unless you upgraded to the $$$ version. Amusingly the top stock headlight they tested was from a Toyota Prius! Quite a few luxury cars were rated poor for headlights.

Similarly to other car markers, the Tesla model 3 base model has very low profit. But if you buy the higher models a large part of the price difference is profit. So the $35k Tesla only made sense if most buyers actually got the $40k model (or higher). So many picked the $40k model, that tesla decided to not make the $35k model and just software restricted the $35k model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> No better way to alienate customers than make them pay for features they already had access to.

<comment><USER31> But they got features they didn't pay for in the first place?

<comment><USER23> In terms of UX, I'd argue shipping the cars software locked in the first place would have been strictly superior to shipping SR+ and downgrading it after the fact.

The rational part of your brain understands why, but I think some pretty fundamental loss aversion emotions kick in when a product you own is downgraded, even if you chose not to pay for the extra features.

Of course, that may be exactly what Tesla is banking on, considering you can just get your credit card out to get it back. I wouldn't be surprised if future SR models come with a one month trial even now the downgrade has been developed.

Parent has a point, IMO, and your reply doesn't really address it.

<comment><USER11> They needed some time to implement the software locking. So it was a choice between delaying delivery by a few weeks vs delivering with extra features and turning them off later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I recently bought a car and seriously considered a Tesla, but ended up buying another. At first my thinking was about the support costs and maintenance (cheaper service vs absurdly expensive accident repairs), but what did it for me was this kind of stuff. Shipping a car with heated seats but only enabling them if they are paid for is very annoying. And not allowing me to write software for my own car is annoying.

I've always disliked DLC and seeing it move into other areas turns me off.

Lots of people don't mind this, but I think it's unethical to ship hardware that is enabled by software that is forbidden for the owner to modify.

<comment><USER33> What other brand of car can you write software for?

<comment><USER32> Twenty years ago I was writing EEPROM stuff for my civic to increase hp.

I don't know any car with an SDK, but most cars sold allow aftermarket software changes.

<comment><USER33> Right, but if you broke it then Honda wouldn't reflash it for free. And they don't give you EEPROM flashing cables and SDK documentation.

So is there really a tangible difference? I'd be surprised if Honda provided you with anything beyond what Tesla provides (ie nothing).

<comment><USER32> You kept the original eeprom and put it back in for service.

This is not possible in a Tesla because of the way they designed connectivity.

I'm not asking for an SDK and official support, I'm just asking for it to be allowed. Tesla actively prevents this, Honda doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm blanking on the term d'art, but I see this similar to the common practice of blocking out features in an MVP where you let users click on things that aren't implemented yet in order to measure which features you should actually go and build next. It's a neat way to quickly get real-world data on what people will pay for and what features they want.

The alternative would have been waiting to ship these customers their new cars until the software was ready. Shipping it early with the explicit notice that eventually the software will arrive which will limit access properly is a win- win for everyone. Customers get their new car sooner, they get free access to a bunch of features they didn't pay for, and the option to upgrade is always there if they do want it in the future.

Clearly these owners are getting a software _upgrade_ , which is implementing new software checks to provide the correct functionality as ordered based on their SKU.

In my past company we also shipped features to customers without all the software limits enforced in firmware in order to get the build out to the field. I imagine it's a fairly common practice, as we tend to code those features last, as nothing depends on them, and you can always ship without them when the sales guy is selling based on the price sheet, not whether the software actually implements the check. As long as customers don't start to believe the check will never actually ship, the bug sat Unassigned.

<comment><USER35> >Clearly these owners are getting a software upgrade, which is implementing new software checks to provide the correct functionality as ordered based on their SKU.

that is some pretty absurd spin

<comment><USER34> Hardly; it precisely describes what is occurring. Calling it a _downgrade_ seems to me to be the absurd spin. It's clearly not a downgrade, as the feature checks weren't even implemented in the previous versions.

I understand what the headline is trying to say, but it's a total misnomer to call it a downgrade.

<comment><USER35> Only in a very pedantic sense that nobody cares about except people that want it to look better than it is.

<comment><USER34> I think a fair headline would be "Tesla Finally Implements Software Limits for Base Model 3 Package". Or perhaps, "Free Ride for Base Model 3 Owners Comes to an End".

I think it's interesting and newsworthy that Tesla shipped the cars initially without the limits. I don't think it's fair to present this as a downgrade.

What they actually did was give some customers something extra for free for several months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How long until someone finds a hack...?

This is one of the reasons I really don't like "software defined cars"... that you don't really own.

<comment><USER36> If you brick a car and you can't convince Tesla that you were doing legitimate security research, they will refuse to reflash it. That's if they don't effectively brick it for you by blocking your VIN from getting parts and firmware updates when a future update detects unexpected features being used. Hacking these cars is an expensive and risky endeavor compared to just coughing up the money for the extra features.

<comment><USER27> But this is hacker news, isn't it? What you said is equally true about the iphone, yet people did hack it...

<comment><USER15> There are also apparently farmers hacking the firmware on their equipment, which costs many times more than the most expensive Tesla:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994)

No one who hacks expects the manufacturer to help or even agree.

<comment><USER37> I'm sympathetic to farmers who hack their John Deere tractors which they only use on private land. I'm much less sympathetic to people who hack the software of cars they drive on public roads.

<comment><USER38> All my 7 cars are hacked. Sorry you feel that way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Lots of hate in the comments- but I feel this is a good thing. I think of it as my free trial to JetBrains IDE expiring - yeah it sucks. But I got what I paid for(or didn't pay for)- and it was good while it lasted.

Besides they had a clear communication about the matter- it's not as if the customers had the rug pulled off their feet. They have been informed well in advance.

</comment><comment><USER40> How can the extended range be controlled by a software feature? For me it is seems deeply unethical to limit the how long a mechanical device can operate via software. Imagine a printer that had a software limit of only printing 5 pages at a time.

<comment><USER8> The customer got exactly what he paid for.

In your hypothetical, you had a choice between buying a printer with unlimited concurrent printing and a cheaper printer that only prints 5 pages at a time.

You did your homework and decided to buy the cheaper one.

Where's the un-ethical part?

<comment><USER41> The unethical part is where I follow trivial instructions online to make my printer do unlimited, concurrent printing but the printer company successfully lobbies the government to treat publishing these trivial instructions as a felony to protect their business model. Stripping me of free speech rights and a "right to repair".

<comment><USER37> You're demonstrating one of the (many) weaknesses of arguing from analogy.

You've completely switched your argument to what happened when instructions were posted about removing software imposed limits on a printer, not what happened (or might happen) in a similar situation with Tesla. Printers do not carry human occupants on a public road system which is heavily regulated and requires certification of vehicles for roadworthiness & safety, including regulation of owner made vehicle modifications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is similar to Windows licensing ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10_editions#Comparison_chart)), where "Windows 10 Home" allows you to use 128 GB of RAM, while the various "Pro" versions allows up to 2 TB, and "Enterprise" up to 6 TB.

The limits used to be lower - I seem to remember laughing out loud at a Stack Overflow podcast, where they talked about having to purchase a new Windows license to be able to expand the RAM of a server.

<comment><USER43> It likely took some work in the OS to support the larger RAM... grow some data structures, tune caches and heap managers, test on new hardware. Yes it's price segmentation but it's not totally arbitrary.

<comment><USER42> Well, you bought a new license and they the RAM was used. No installation of anything but the license. At least that's how I remember the podcast explaining it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I have always coveted a Telsa and waiting for the right time, but this behavior is the precise reason why I'm cancelling them out. I know they are desperate for cash, but this is truly terrible.

<comment><USER45> Are you sure you understand the situation? The buyers knew up front that this was just a trial, there's nothing underhanded here.

<comment><USER44> I do understand the situation, it's not about what the buyers know, but the fact that the car actually has features disabled by software. Why in the world will you reduce range with software? I can understand if different models have different range because of different battery capacity. Make no mistake, this will be hacked, it's only a matter of time.

Occasionally we see software about John Derre and how they use software to limit what can be done to their tractors. We all agree and talk about how evil that is. Tesla doing the same thing is pure evil.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm not sure how this will go down in America, but in New Zealand at least I believe that this will breach the Consumer Guarantees Act.

Edit: there's a clause in the act that says once the buyer owns the product, they own the product. I believe that this change would breach that clause. I believe that the Model 3 has not yet shipped - so this isn't a retroactive downgrade, and the act might not apply.

<comment><USER47> How would Teslas get any updates in New Zealand if updates breach CGA?

<comment><USER48> Presumably software updates that improve stuff/add features are allowed, but not if they make things worse. E.g. VW is being sued in Germany because their "removed dieselgate software" update makes fuel economy worse than advertised. It might fix the emissions to as advertised, but the owners aren't getting better emissions as promised, because the promise was a lie.

If that is the case for NZ Teslas, a cute hack would be to trick the car to think it is in New Zealand. Calling the Ukrainian hackers... ([https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american- farme...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xykkkd/why-american-farmers-are- hacking-their-tractors-with-ukrainian-firmware))

<comment><USER46> Good luck doing that without breaking mapping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Tesla seems to be desperate for cash flow, _any_ cash flow. First they shutdown stores and now they are trying to squeeze out existing customers. Looks like Musk called meeting with top leaders and charged them to find any way whatsoever to get extra cash.

<comment><USER50> Read upthread. This change was always promised to the buyers of the cheap model 3 on purchase, as the software to restrict these features was not complete then. It is now, and is being applied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> This reminds me of IBM which would rent the same hardware and then charge you for "performance upgrades" which were typically provided as jumpers.

<comment><USER52> That the hardware was rented makes the practice feel less egregious to me. You are after all essentially paying for a service when renting.

But paying someone to unlock physical functionality of a device which you own… that feels like crossing the line toed by IBM's practice (and that of others mentioned in comments such as Intel).

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> That's all so ridiculous. I mean people buying those cars know what they are buying in to. I would never support such practices.

I do understand if an engine is throttled to increase its life time. Apple does it with the cpus in their computers. But just omitting a feature for the sake of selling it additionally is a ridiculous business practice nobody should support.

</comment><comment><USER54> WTF is Engadget doing these days with ads? Attempting to go to the site in Firefox with uMatrix gets me an immediate redirect to "[https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers"](https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers") with a session ID attached.

</comment><comment><USER55> If they can remove the feature via an OTA update, why do you have to go into a service station to get the features back?

<comment><USER14> Guessing its due to the features of the car being locked into some part of memory that can not be updated over the air and bringing it in will allow them to update it so future OTA updates will give the correct update.

Basically change the car's version from being a M3 SR to M3 SR+

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Seems like a dumb move. This affects a (relatively) small enough number of customers that had they just let it slide, the public at large would not have noticed. This isn't that bad of a news story in the grand scheme of things, but at this point I don't think Tesla can afford any bad press, at all.

</comment><comment><USER57> How is range determined by software? Isn't that purely a function of how many amp hours of battery you have?

<comment><USER58> It's artificially capped in software.

<comment><USER57> That's just wrong. If you own a physical resource, such as a lithium battery, you should be able to use it to its full potential.

If they want to sell lower-range cars they should just load them with smaller batteries, and have the upgrade be the battery pack, not the software.

Gas cars don't do that. Whatever gas you put in, you can use. These kind of shenanigans only make people love gas cars more, which is honestly not in Tesla's best interest if they want to increase adoption.

<comment><USER33> One reason they may have done this is because there was a time when they were looking at battery swapping. Standard batteries (with just software limiting) between all M3s would make this logistically so much easier.

<comment><USER57> Logistically fine, but if it makes financial sense to even manufacture and ship full sized batteries to everyone, you might as well let people use them. Otherwise it's purely wasteful, which contradicts their first principles of existence as a company to have unused and will-never-be-used lithium cells being trucked around by thousands of cars the country.

Software upgrades should only provide better software, not unlock precious resources that would otherwise be wasted.

Also, writing software to deliberately cripple hardware is counterproductive to advancement of technology. It also highly incentivizes people to reverse engineer your system, hack your system, unsubscribe themselves from updates, and IMO they have every right to do so. It would be in your best interest to NOT incentivize this type of behavior. If I buy 5 batteries from you, you have no right to walk into my house, install a safe, and lock up 1 of them for a ransom, which is exactly what they are doing. It's childish at best and unethical at worst. If you did that, I will destroy the safe and recover the 5th battery. It's my property that I purchased and I have the right to use it.

<comment><USER33> Right, but it's not like they're selling and voltage-limiting like a lead acid battery or something like that ... the battery is full of software to measure the discharge current, temperature of every cell, etc. There's massive engineering complexity in the battery monitoring system.

It's no different to software providing both free and premium versions in the same binary. What are you paying for? Not the number of bytes.. the R&D hours behind it.

So for the battery, what are you actually paying for? Not the physical battery, but the capital they had to put into designing the system - a system they designed and determined was cheaper to produce at mass with a standard battery layout and configuration (hence the same voltage range, fuses, battery discharge profile etc)

Now if you start messing around with the battery layout then suddenly all your hundreds of sensors, fuses, etc need the ability to achieve remapping and you have to do independent testing, charge profiling etc on the new design.. possibly even design new inverters if you have to change the maximum voltage. So their approach ends up being basic subtraction and scaling on the state of charge. This can be implemented in literally an hour vs. many months and supply chain headache involving hundreds of new PNs.

Disclaimer; I design power systems for a Tesla 'rival' kinda.

<comment><USER58> > It's no different to software providing both free and premium versions in > the same binary. What are you paying for? Not the number of bytes.. the R&D > hours behind it.

I think the reason people tolerate this arrangement with software is that they are not actually buying ownership of the IP that this R&D capitalizes; they're buying a license to use that IP.

Here, they're purchasing ownership of an actual car. Tesla is actively denying them full use of something that they own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> However you feel about it, the bigger point is that none of big auto could do this even if they wanted to

</comment><comment><USER60> The question I have is: Were these features accidentally turned on, or were they on "free trial"?

I drove a rental model s once, and it had the autopilot features turned on like navigate on autopilot, but there was a warning "Trial period ends in 23 days" or something like that.

<comment><USER8> Neither.

Tesla sold those cars before they finished the software that enforces the limits.

From now on this will be in the car from the beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> So you have seat heating elements, but software has disabled them? Nice. Feels like a multi-core processor with half of the processors disabled.

</comment><comment><USER62> happily driving my gas guzzling "on-prem, perpetually licensed source" model of ownership instead of dealing with that bs.

</comment><comment><USER63> Queue the market for Tesla hack garages where all upgrades can be turned on for £100.

</comment><comment><USER64> The title feels like partially clickbait, customers who paid for the standard range have been getting the extended range for free and soon this will be software locked.

"Your Model 3 will soon receive new software that matches the Model 3 Standard Range configuration you ordered. As we communicated in April, this includes a limited range of 220 miles, and the removal of several software features. To continue experiencing the extended range, faster acceleration and Autopilot features of Model Standard Range Plus, schedule a service appointment through your Tesla app."

<comment><USER65> Regardless, this is a bad PR and they are losing potential customers. No one wants their car to be trimmed down just because the manufactures chose so. No, it doesn't matter what's written in the fine print.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> They should offer the steering column as an additional, beautifully machined $999 option. The clientele will understand.

</comment><comment><USER67> There will be a tesla pirat and tweaker scenen in 10 days.</comment>


AI is limited by its code - <AUTHOR> https://mindmatters.ai/2019/03/the-flawed-logic-behind-thinking-computers-part-iii/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is part 3 in a series.

Part 1: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19625722](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19625722)

Part 2: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19637124](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19637124)</comment>