AwesomenessReminders now has 750 paying subscribers - <AUTHOR> http://www.awesomenessreminders.com/#purchaseSubscription <comment><USER2> I think the take-away lesson is that there's no such thing as a bad idea, only a bad implementation. The internet is such a ludicrously big place that it seems that if you do just about _anything_ , you'll find a market for it as long as you can explain it concisely and do it well.

</comment><comment><USER3> What a weird creepy service. Only in America...

<comment><USER4> Seriously, who buys something like this? Even as a joke it's weak and drags on for at least a month. I can imagine it's not funny anymore after several days. Like canned laughter.

<comment><USER5> I think I would want to purchase it right now actually. My girlfriend is somewhat a depressed personality and this would def be a good self improvement for only $15.00.

Shes the type that always thinks negative about themselves. I imagine everyone knows the types.

<comment><USER6> Honest question: do you think a phone call from someone paid to say, "You're awesome!" will help your girlfriend's mood?

<comment><USER5> Yes I do. A simple gesture like that. She would like. Think of it like a $10.00 set of roses. I think she would very much appreciate the gesture. Most women like it when you show that your thinking about them.

On another note, I talk to her every night and say shes beautiful. So whats another gesture telling her shes awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We've all likely seen startups come into HN asking for a review of their app when we thought "Hey, that was MY idea!", but we never shipped it, and these guys are.

Well, I thought this was a terrible idea when I first heard about it, and even if it folds after a single month, it was well worth the investment to build it.

ship it, ship it, ship it!

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting pricing strategy

A 1-month-only subscription costs $15.(<http://www.awesomenessreminders.com/aboutus.php>)

A monthly subscription costs $10/month (and the subscription can be terminated at the end of the month)

Some people may pay $15 to avoid the hassle of explicitly canceling the service after one month. Most will probably prefer the $10 option because it appears like a great deal (in comparison with the $15 option). Either way, the service gets more customers than they might with a more simple one-price monthly option

<comment><USER9> Yeah, but unlike most other subscriptions that people tend to forget about, they'll be reminded of this one each and every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Somewhat off-topic, but very related: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbk980jV7Ao>

<comment><USER11> Very related, indeed. And a good short movie you can forward to friends that will make them feel good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's like Bruce's ant farm through the mail service... "Wait a minute! You mean I can fill out this post card and they'll actually _mail_ a real, live ant farm to the address I write down! This is awesome."

Citation - I replied: "What's really interesting is that these people will send a tube of live ants to anyone you tell them to."

[http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/03/the_security_m...](http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/03/the_security_mi_1.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> @AwesomeReminders: You might consider offering AwesomeTextMessageReminders at a reduced rate. Either custom text, given by your customers, or something like: "Hi John. Someone who knows you told me you were awesome. Have an awesome day."

<comment><USER14> Wouldn't this get old _real_ quick? Like after one message.

<comment><USER15> To be fair. The current concept would appear to have this flaw as well.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, but the voice service probably does better at hacking your brain's social interaction coprocessor.

They could send MMS with audio attachments instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you buy the one month plan I can see the recipient getting depressed on the 1st day of the second month when they don't get their awesomeness call. I know these people.

<comment><AUTHOR> If it is that addictive then Zack is home free :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Got to say I love this. I have a recording of think big quote personalized to me on my cell phone. "Meet Chester Grant. He is number one. He is the best at getting better..." I use it as a laugh; it never fails to make me chuckle.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think the take away lesson here is that you can't judge an idea until it is market tested.

On the surface, I would say this idea would fail - I don't like it since it seems trivial.

However, I'm not the target customer segment so my opinion doesn't matter. As Peter Drucker says: "you don't define what is value, your customers do". The only way to figure this out is by releasing and shipping products.

The true test will be the # of reoccurring purchases for the service.

</comment><comment><USER20> From the sample size of two calls in the FAQ, each call takes an average of 30 seconds, so in total they would take over 6 hours to do.

<comment><USER21> Which would get him an hourly wage between $30 (about $6,200 per month) and $60 (about $11,300 per month), depending on the mix of plans people signed up for. Oh, you have to subtract the cost of the calls which are probably negligible – I guess something like $50 or so for a flat rate.

He could hire some poor student who makes some calls and pay minimum wage (about $1,600 per month for all the current calls, there are probably cheaper options, maybe he does that already), that would probably make scaling possible. I would now usually add that he won't be a millionaire anytime soon but I also wouldn't have predicted that 752 customers would sign up so I better be quiet.

What I want to know: How can he not sound grumpy or go completely crazy after short phone calls with hundreds of different people. Every. Fucking. Day. That seems like a riddle.

– edit: Ah, scrap that. There are already callers or will be soon: <http://www.awesomenessreminders.com/jobs.php>

<comment><USER22> Honestly, I'm tempted by this job. It sounds awesome.

<comment><USER23> I sent the link to my girlfriend. She is super bubbly and a work-from-home job would be awesome for her college (nursing school) career. I think there are a lot of college kids who would do well at this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am probably in the majority here when I write I could never see myself paying for such a service. However, here is something I would like to see: the ability to call (and receive a call) from a random stranger and be able to talk about anything positive.

That last word is probably something that would make this service very challenging to implement.

</comment><comment><USER24> And the main requirement for getting a job with them is an advanced capability to persuade yourself of anything (or lie convincingly?):

"Please be sure to spend some time practicing before you call - make sure the message is enthusiastic, /sincere/ and emotionally connected!" (my italics)

</comment><comment><USER25> Are the calls "made in the USA?"

<comment><USER26> I imagine they're sent over top-quality Denon cables too, your packets never felt so good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> i think this is a great idea but one month is too long. why not have different options like 1-3 days, 1 week, once every month or special occasions (birthdays, anniversaries)?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually really clever, that way he gets to make more money with the same amount of effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> $10 more for international? Are you calling from a landline? :)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm LMFAO. This is great, and now because people see this is getting usage, it will get more usage, more coverage, and then more usage lol. Nice job AR :)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the most literal interpretation of 'make something people want' that you could possibly do, make them feel loved.

To identify an human need like this and to have the guts to follow through on it is really something special, the funniest thing of all is that in the same thread where Zack launched this he was told off by people telling him to spend more time on his projects or nothing would ever take off :)

I agree with you that this could easily snowball, and for those that are not convinced of the use, (no, I'm not a user) there are plenty of people for who a daily sign of life from the rest of the world would make a huge difference.

Who knows, maybe one day your medical insurance will refund you your <http://www.awesomenessreminders.com/> subscription fee :)

Another thing that might happen is that the service will branch out in to other fields once a large enough customerbase has been created, the customers themselves will probably start supplying ideas.

It's a golden recipe, dial-out to people that are happy to take your call because they know you will try to make them feel good, instead of calling them to sell them something.

<comment><USER3> I disagree entirely.

"make them feel loved."

Having some stranger cold call me and read a script at me isn't going to make me feel loved. It's going to make me pissed off and hang up the phone. But OTOH I'm British - we don't go for the smarmy at all.

Sure, there's a market for this, just like there's a large market for horoscopes.

But at the end of the day, it, just like horoscopes, is preying on the stupid.

<comment><USER29> _But at the end of the day, it, just like horoscopes, is preying on the stupid._

Okay, I take issue with that. It actually pisses me off. Unlike horoscopes you are not led to think you'll receive something which is not actually delivered. This is a legitimate product which delivers fully on what is sold. Enjoying a positive, potentially humorous daily event does not make people like "Holly" or "Logan" from the sample phone calls "stupid". In fact, I myself have considered signing up for it. I just haven't went through with it. Not many would think I'm stupid.

I actually had an idea somewhat similar to this. It was to send a randomly timed, positive email out to a list of participants. The email wasn't to say the participant was awesome; it was just to say _something_ positive, as opposed to being work related email, or spam messages sitting in their inbox, just something to brighten their day. I never figured out what content to put in the email, but I now bequeath that idea to AwesomenessReminders to add to their service as they see fit, because their version and implementation of positive messages is really good (and obviously selling).

True entrepreneurs know the value of motivation and encouragement. Success usually doesn't come overnight, and because entrepreneurship is a road less traveled it can be an emotionally lonely one, even with loving friends and family, because they don't really appreciate, or understand what you're trying to do. This is why tricks like posting up motivational quotes, or pictures of nice things to buy often help entrepreneurs keep slugging away. It can be tough to manufacture the consistent optimism and positive energy needed to continue down a road of setbacks, disappointments, and obstacles which can drag on for months and years. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only converted or transferred. If you believe this fundamental law of science then you might possibly see the value of receiving a positive, energetic message, in a world where positivity in general is quite scarce (just turn on the news). There is nothing stupid about this; in fact, it makes perfect sense. Besides, it's lighthearted and fun.

<comment><USER30> [9/10/10 11:49:36 AM] Zachary Burt: =)

[9/10/10 11:49:44 AM] Awesomeness Reminders: hola mi amigo

[9/10/10 11:50:24 AM] Awesomeness Reminders: customer 463...AHHHHmazing..what a story

[9/10/10 11:50:49 AM] Zachary Burt: oh yeah?

[9/10/10 11:51:30 AM] Awesomeness Reminders: when i called yesterday she was at the hospital visiting her neice who has leukemia. she promptly handed the phone over and i was able to tell this kid that she is amazing

[9/10/10 11:51:39 AM] Zachary Burt: oh my god

[9/10/10 11:51:42 AM] Awesomeness Reminders: and awesome

[9/10/10 11:51:47 AM] Awesomeness Reminders: and a fighter

[9/10/10 11:51:56 AM] Awesomeness Reminders: i cried all freakin' night....

<comment><USER31> Yep-that was awesome!!!!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just had an epiphany.

You need to sell this service to Foxconn! Imagine how many suicides you could prevent!

</comment><comment><USER30> If anyone is interested in listening to a fun radio interview: [http://blogs.965thebuzz.com/afentra/2010/09/02/zach-from- awe...](http://blogs.965thebuzz.com/afentra/2010/09/02/zach-from- awesomenessreminders-com/)

</comment><comment><USER33> Wow, 750 paying subscribers at a minimum of $10 = $7500/month for a total of 6.25 hours of work time (lets triple it to be conservative and take into account dialing/redialing/waiting).

Thats a working wage of about $416/hour. I assume he has zero advertising and negligible hosting costs. But something like this, I'm sure there must be advertising, can't ALL be viral...can it?

<comment><USER34> Pffft. I'd farm the work out to mechanical Turk. Then you don't even have to do the work yourself. :) Much more scalable and less annoying too. You could even have them call you occasionally for verification they're really putting their hearts into it.

<comment><USER35> Even better, offer a discounted service to people who agree to make a few calls themselves ;-) It could run itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Now that is _really_ smart!

But you could end up in a chatroulette style situation pdq too.

<comment><USER34> Hey, there's actually another reason that's smart too. Apparently having positive emotions toward other people makes it more likely for you yourself to be happy. So maybe having these people call others to tell them how great they are would have even more of an effect than the initial service offered.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Robot Asimo can understand three voices at once  - <AUTHOR> http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn14105-robot-asimo-can-understand-three-voices-at-once.html <comment><USER2> Sidenote: most women I know can follow several conversations at the same time. In a restaurant, they always know what people on adjacent tables are talking about.

<comment><USER3> This comment reminds me of the time I read an article about some triviality of women. The article was accompanied by a photo, with the caption "A woman shopping in grocery store". The article had nothing to do with shopping or groceries.

<comment><USER2> The article mentioned that the robot can do something humans supposedly can not do, listen to several voices at the same time. I am ready to believe that it is true for men, but maybe not for women.

Maybe you just need to think around some more corners than you usually do...</comment></comment></comment>


Equifax Breach Settlement tool to find out whether your data was compromised - sahin-boydas https://www.equifaxbreachsettlement.com/file-a-claim <comment><AUTHOR> Almost 200 comments yesterday, especially on how the website doesn't look like equuifax and would be ideal for collecting people's data [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20527646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20527646)</comment>


Ask HN: What's a great emacs setup for C++? - <AUTHOR> I'm seeking recommendations on a workflow for using emacs for C++ -- what are the good emacs tools to install and use for editing, code-completion (in-context completion that shows a menu of only possible completions for the object would be nice), step-through debugging, compiling, etc -- basically, replacing a power IDE with emacs, is possible? <comment><USER2> Have a look there : [https://tuhdo.github.io/c-ide.html](https://tuhdo.github.io/c-ide.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> I recently discovered cmake-ide for c++ emacs work. Ever used that?</comment></comment>


Telegram apps fall foul of iOS App Store content rules - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/01/telegram-apps-fall-foul-of-ios-app-store-content-rules/ <comment><USER2> Main discussion here (216 points, 145 comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281986](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16281986)

</comment><comment><USER3> What's the possibility of Signal being removed? That's one of my most used apps

<comment><USER4> Articles about App Store rejection are always a bit sensationalized. I'm not very familiar with Telegram, but I think the issue here is that by default on a fresh install there are public channels that could contain "obscene content".

There are no public channels in Signal, so there's nothing objectionable for an app reviewer to see on first launch. Apple doesn't restrict any form of end-to-end crypto... except VPN apps in China. :-\

<comment><USER5> > I'm not very familiar with Telegram, but I think the issue here is that by > default on a fresh install there are public channels that could contain > "obscene content".

Correct. Telegram has public channels and groups, many of which are used to distribute porn. Earlier versions of Telegram for iOS prevented users from joining (and possibly even viewing?) these channels -- this feature was inadvertently lost in the "Telegram X" rewrite, which led to Apple's temporary removal of the app.

<comment><USER6> You mean that there's no way to join these discussions in Apple-sanctioned versions? I mean, I'm all for sensible defaults and protecting unwitting users, but if somebody _wants_ to join and view, there should be something they can toggle somewhere to enable that functionality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When developing for iOS, you "serve at the pleasure of the King".

<comment><USER8> Also true for Android, but the king in this case is a bit more easy going.

<comment><USER9> Not really true for Android as there are alternative ways to distribute Android apps in the form of alternative app repositories like FDroid, Aptoide, Amazon. It is also possible to sideload apk's without the need for 'rooting', this in contrast to iOS.

<comment><USER8> I didn't know you couldn't install apps from unofficial sources on iOS!

Still, I think that getting your app banned from Play Store 99.9% of the times will mean an effectively dead app.

As an Android app developer, I try to publish on as many stores as possible, but traffic from alternate stores is unfortunatelly almost non-existent.

<comment><USER9> True, the Play Store is the nexus of Android app distribution. The fact that it is not the _only_ venue is a big advantage for both Android users as well as developers as it makes it impossible for a single party - be it Google or an entity pressuring Google into acting in a certain way - to keep applications from reaching users. Although only a small fraction of the total flow it is nevertheless significant in what it embodies: freedom from censorship.

<comment><USER8> I generally agree.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


BART Says Their Oakland Airport Connector Is Losing Money Because of Uber, Lyft - <AUTHOR> http://sfist.com/2017/03/08/bart_says_their_oakland_airport_con.php <comment><USER2> It also cost more than $6 for a single one way link. Why on earth would you ever take it when even an ordinary taxi is cheaper?

<comment><USER3> "why on earth"

Safety vs Cost. Scheduled lightrail vs Traffic.

<comment><USER2> Ah schedules. I assume you don't use Bart regularly? ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Medical benefits of dental floss unproven - <AUTHOR> http://bigstory.ap.org/article/f7e66079d9ba4b4985d7af350619a9e3/medical-benefits-dental-floss-unproven <comment><USER2> Floss can remove food particles that get stuck in between teeth. That food will promote bacteria that cause a rather foul odor, so it should be removed. I've been around many people that don't floss and the smell of their breath is noticeable and disgusting. At the very least, one should floss to help prevent that.

<comment><USER3> Sometimes your "common sense" reaction is not supported by the data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> if done correctly I'm sure it removes shit from between the teeth that would otherwise decay

<comment><USER5> well, that settles it then!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is another case of profitable oversimplification. Do dogs brush their teeth and floss? Do most animals with perfect teeth do deep cleaning and stuff? We again built an industry around bad habits and poor (but affordable and profitable) diets!

</comment><comment><USER7> Also posted earlier at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12208402](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12208402) though no discussion there (yet?).</comment>


Infinite memory - people who remember every minute of their lives - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7166313n&tag=contentMain;contentBody 60 minute segment on superior autobiographical memory, people who can instantly recall every event that has happened in their lives. <comment><USER2> Thank G-d this is not me! Don't most people usually take drugs to forget and that's without remember everything to begin with.

Its actually kind of scary when you test savants and realize they are for real.</comment>


Is there another tech bubble? - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/12/08/so-is-there-another-tech-bubble-or-not/

<comment><USER2> While there are many factors that point to the industry heating up, I do not believe that we are frothing yet. One of the things that many miss about the .com bust was that the infrastructure just was not there to support the application that where being built. Some of the .com bust was because the entire market moved too soon. Most people where on dial-up, commoditization of servers had not happened, and the toolkits we have today where not available. A lot of the .com bust where good idea's on paper but where just too unusable by the consumer in implementation.

Fast forward to today, and much of what is fueling the boom is mobile. The big difference here is that mobile is ready, the infrastructure was there before people jumped in and started to move the industry forward. I sometimes wonder if Steve knew that and kept the iPhone locked away from third party developers until it was ready to sustain the rush.

To me the mobile market's growth is a lot more healthy and a lot less exuberant than the .com rush was. I think what is throwing people off, is what I see as a new form of hiring, where a company of developers form around a product that has no hope of commercial success but yet they get acquired. This bothers some because it mirrors the bad ideas of the .com bust, but I tend to look at it as a new form of resume. The VC know good teams are in demand, so they can invest in keeping a team together, while the large players spend a lot of money identifying good candidates, purchasing ready made teams reduces that burden and has a higher success rate. Looking at the VC's as a form of headhunter that invest in keeping a team asset together to sell makes the picture of how that market works a lot clearer.

On a side note, after reading the first paragraph of that article, my bullshit meter spiked, I do not know what this paragraph says, other than they made a tool and are most likely selling it or the research from it:

 _in the context of a data-driven value capture and investability model. We have developed a tool called The KeyStone Compact method, which considers multiple corporate element interactions including the replicability of the nexus of a company's capabilities (assets, networks, skills) relative to the nature and cost of acquisition of complementary assets required to capture value in the market ('positioning for value capture – PVC')._</comment>


Why the "Digital Ocean killed my company" incident scares the hell out of me - <AUTHOR> https://blog.checklyhq.com/why-the-recent-digital-ocean-killed-my-company-incident-scares-the-hell-out-of-me/ <comment><USER2> I've had a DO mistake take down my site before, and when it was brought back up it had been reverted to several months prior. DO support was at a loss as to why this would have happened. I tried to restore from DO's backup service, but their backups had apparently stopped running several months prior as well. This was a major issue and could have easily been the death of my company, all because of a DO glitch.

But it wasn't, because every night I run a PG backup and copy it to AWS S3. I just had to download the backup from the other cloud vendor and restore it on my DO server.

Did DO fuck up? Yes. Did it cost me downtime? Yes. Was I mad? Yes, and I still am. But I still do business with DO because it costs ~half the price of a comparable EC2 instance, and writing a 10 line bash script to move my database backups to another cloud vendor isn't that hard. Storing that backup on S3 costs pennies per month.

I don't see "I've never run a business before" as a valid excuse, nor do I see "the cloud vendor is better equipped to handle backups" as a valid excuse. When it comes down to it, you are solely responsible to your customers. They're not going to care whose fault it was, because it was your fault.

Don't trust _any_ of your vendors.

<comment><USER3> > But I still do business with DO because it costs ~half the price of a > comparable EC2 instance

I'm curious why people who don't have massive scaling and variability issues choose DO or AWS for their hosting.

For 34€/month, Hetzner will rent you a physical server (i7-6700, 64GB RAM, 2x512GB SSD, 1Gbit/s networking). That's a monster of a machine and can run most sites out there. And if you need more oomph and better reliability, rent three.

I looked at this many times and still check the pricing regularly, and it just doesn't make sense for me to switch from these physical servers to virtualized offerings, not in any foreseeable future.

<comment><USER4> Because hypothetically your instance should be hardware agnostic. If the physical hardware dies, it should automatically migrate to another physical server at their data center without your intervention. It will only look like an unexpected restart from your perspective.

That's something worth paying for. It would be more comparable to two servers at Hetzner with rapid failover. But even that is more involved since you have to set up the logic of when to failover.

Auto-scaling is a benefit of "cloud" services. But it isn't the only selling point. Hardware abstraction is perhaps bigger.

<comment><USER5> That's wishful thinking.

If there's state in that virtual machine, it's probably either stored on the physical host or in a SAN. If it's in the physical host, it has to be fished out of that machine or restored from a backup. If it's a SAN, you can lose your virtual machine if the SAN goes down.

I've seen both happen.

Actually, a single machine with RAID is surprisingly stable. A provider like Hetzner can switch out a faulty disk in less than five minutes, or switch a faulty motherboard/power supply in less than half an hour.

Virtualization on top of this does not increase stability, in my experience.

Now, some cloud providers do have more sophisticated distributed systems that do not have single points of failure, and that's a completely different story.

Of course, the software itself is a source of correlated failures, so even there you should never rely on a single cloud vendor.

There's a poster here on this site who commented some months ago that he had for years rented three servers, each on a different continent, each from a different provider, and never had downtime. That's engineering.

<comment><USER6> >If there's state in that virtual machine, it's probably either stored on the physical host or in a SAN

I think the point is to write your application in a way that there's not state in the VM. My VMs are disposable and in fact the way I do deployments is to spin up a new VM in DO and then assign it the floating IP for production. If things go haywire I can easily swap back the IP address to the known good VM.

<comment><USER7> Are you using managed databases then?

<comment><USER6> I am. Mostly for the backup and other DB administration that comes with it. Also use Spaces (DO's S3 equivalent) for any assets that aren't packaged with the code like user uploads.

<comment><USER8> Future wish: all VPSes have managed databases, object hosting and centralized logs as standard so as not to rely on local disk at all. There is a streaming backup protocol, which allows any database and queue vendors to stream to any location, and acts as a peer for fully synchronous replication. If your DO Postgres, Kafka and Mongo instances are killed, you have a Bakstream cluster in Linode which lost no data and allows you to restore in Vultr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am old enough to have lived in soviet times for a short while. One thing I remember from back then - in order to get things done, you had to know someone. Perhaps your aunt's friend worked in the politbureau or your mom's classmate was a friend of the director. Through connections like that you could get what you needed.

It was such a relief when times changed and regardless of who you were, you could start exchanging money for things and services.

This story and many others like it remind me of those times - it's back to who you know to get your account unlocked. I've never gotten a story on the front page of HN and probably have 5 twitter followers. What's my avenue of getting my data back?

This isn't just about DO either. Similar stories about google and other services are many to be found.

<comment><USER10> I'll toot my own theory and it is that nobody wants to pay for enough capable support staff, pay to keep the support staff at the ready often enough, pay support staff who want to stay in that role.

They want to automate that all away as much as possible.

The future is everyone who isn't somebody chatting about how they run their application on X... because they're mysteriously banned form Y and Z and the next guy talks about how he was banned on X and is on Z now... simply for that reason.

<comment><USER6> >I'll toot my own theory and it is that nobody wants to pay for enough capable support staff, pay to keep the support staff at the ready often enough, pay support staff who want to stay in that role.

The crazy thing is that it's really not that expensive. AWS, for example, offers 24x7 support w/ <1 hour response time for production issues starting at $100 a month. At worst it's 10% of your bill.

<comment><USER10> It's very doable, but sadly even skilled management (in my experience) tends to avoid / flee support organizations due to their low prestige / resources pattern that is across a lot of industries.

I fear it is something very doable, but I'm not sure there are many in leadership that can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Arguably Raisup should have been better prepared for this eventuality. _But_ , I suspect that many of the people here talking about how _their_ system is infallible made it that way because they, had time and/or money to spare working on it, have a very portable system, or have had something like this happen before.

I feel like HN comments are often sanctimonious to the point of ignorance. A solo dev, scrambling to get his project to the point where there is even the tiniest chance it will succeed, is likely to have a complex network of hardcoded filepaths, hostnames, and other magic numbers, strings, and config files that would make it very difficult to make portable without significant time and effort.

Or maybe the guy was an idiot. But possibly entertain the thought that maybe his situation wasn't exactly comparable to your eh?

<comment><USER12> > Or maybe the guy was an idiot. But possibly entertain the thought that maybe > his situation wasn't exactly comparable to your eh?

I have never encountered a business that does not require backups. Not having a DR site as early in the game as they were might be excusable, but even then suggesting they get one is sound advice. It's an additional expense but it has a cheaper implementation cost while your infrastructure is small. Having a good DR plan is a selling point as well, this is the first thing I ask SaaS providers when I am evaluating them.

What is a total failure is not having backups on another provider. Before anyone says it's just a 2-person startup... surely that makes it easier? I can't imagine their DBs are all that big. Even just a three line cronjob and a Backblaze B2 ($0.005/GB) account could have secured their business continuity in the event their DO account didn't come back up.

>But also DO Spaces for our object storage with ~500k media and our database backups.

Based on that comment (from @w3nicolas on Twitter) they actually could have used the same script they used for DO Spaces to back up their DBs to S3 (both use the S3 protocol). The 500k image files should be relatively small and cheap to back up too, appears they are just logo thumbnails for the tracked companies (500k image files, copy says they track 450k companies).

If you are building infrastructure and you don't have IT Ops experience consult somebody who does because they will save you from yourself in scenarios like this. If you are a dev you could probably throw a rock and hit 5 friends with enough ops experience to tell you the importance of redundant backups.

I think this comment might read a bit more abrasively than I meant it, but I don't mean to kick the guy after he was down. If you are in a similar boat to RaisUp with your backups go fix it now. If you rely on any one vendor for business continuity that is a problem. This PSA is sponsored by salty sysadmins everywhere.

<comment><USER13> > I have never encountered a business that does not require backups.

Me neither. But unfortunately the most I've encountered don't either have truly full backups (missing stuff), actually working backup process (some issue with backup media, process, etc.) or any idea how to actually restore if something _does_ happen.

Almost no one does drills to restore backups to some test system.

I can't talk about the other cases, but I can tell about one small startup I joined a long ago. The worst one. They did backups on a 3-disk RAID-5 server... with one disk broken and one with SMART warnings. Their backup process also failed to backup anything with too long path names, so in reality almost half of the data was actually missing! There was also some unicode issue that lost files with characters above 128 ASCII.

My first days went to just actually ensuring their data is backed up...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You don't have to actually have redundant providers and monthly-tested DR runs, etc. But you do need a plan. No matter how small.

If you are just a side project running locally, than plan me be as simple as "If my laptop falls in a river, get a new one and clone the repo again." As you start having production systems, it may still be "clone the repo again", but this time to actual servers.

As you start having customers rely on you, your plan should get more robust. Maybe you don't have a hot DR site set up where you can just flip a switch. But you should know who your backup host would be, and have an account ready with them. You should what steps would be needed to go from repo -> new provider.

None of this needs to be set up and tested ahead of time if you are just getting started. But if you have paying customers, you have to have thought about it. DR starts tiny and scales up, just like everything else.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Do have some backups outside of your primary cloud provider. You'll sleep > better.

This is really the takeaway from this whole incident. Even if the account doesn't get banned you're just one accidental action away from your database and backups disappearing simultaneously otherwise in most cases. Or if you are using a blob store there may not be any backup if the original is deleted (it's like RAID not backups).

<comment><USER16> And have a separate DNS provider.

<comment><USER17> No reason to.

If your cloud provider does your DNS and you switch to a different cloud provider...

...then just set your registrar to point to the new DNS provider. You've still got total control.

<comment><USER16> That transition requires authorisation from the original provider. If they locked your account and don't pick up the phone, you won't get the move approved and won't be able to repoint your urls to a different cloud.

<comment><USER18> No it doesn't. Name servers are controlled by the registrar not the DNS provider.

<comment><USER16> By provider I mean the registrar (which typically provides both services). Moving to another registrar requires an authorization code, and good luck getting that on a short notice if your provider doesn't talk to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Digital Ocean's statement on the events:

[https://blog.digitalocean.com/an-update-on-last-weeks- custom...](https://blog.digitalocean.com/an-update-on-last-weeks-customer- shutdown-incident/)

Lots of support related issues here.

As someone who worked in support for a long time it isn't surprising to see this play out and the whole "Support and Security Operations leadership will create new workflows to allow abuse-related events to leverage the 24/7 structure of Support." while probably a good action to take, is one of those things that you see in support time and again and so rarely do you see an appropriate response as much as a patch for "this one thing won't happen again".

Nobody cares to staff, fund, and support the support teams until something goes wrong, and then it is usually "new workflows" for support.

</comment><comment><USER19> When I joined Digital Ocean, back when it was 2-3 months old, I hit a KVM bug in their stack with my network traffic that caused them to rate limit my droplet to 1Kbit/s because it kept taking the host machine down I guess(?), and then them ultimately terminating it without a ticket asking me to even investigate. That was enough to pretty much never consider using Digital Ocean for anything "production" ever again. They didn't terminate my account, and apologized with credit, but wow.

Another thought: That was also back when support responded in a reasonable time frame, and they actually spoke on IRC and everything too.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've got a stable setup:

      </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---
      Vultr </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>== Linode
      </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---
      Los Angeles </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>== Dallas
      Mastercard 1234 </comment><comment></comment><comment>= Visa 4567
      </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---
      VMs with custom Linux (ROOT/ZFS Debian)
      Replicating snapshots every 5 minutes
      CloudFlare + HAProxy Load Balancing

Total cost: 6 VMS at $20 each: $120, CloudFlare $20

Edit: backups to B2 and Wasabi. ~$10 month

<comment><USER21> Are you using a managed host for HAProxy? What if it goes down.

<comment><USER20> I have a failover setup that changes Cloudflare DNS when necessary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Pretty much the standard "the cloud is just someone else's computer" issue: if you don't have the ability to reproduce your work somewhere else and your provider decides to go away, you're going to have a Bad Time(TM).

Also, for as cool as Digital Ocean is, their primary focus is on low-use, shared cloud resources. From my experience, they over subscribe CPU resources so "noisy neighbors" was a problem sometimes. They do not provide or work with people as if they have production services, and they don't seem to like people who really want to use their system. I would never use them for production unless the work was ephemeral.

</comment><comment><USER23> What scares me the most these days is that a lot of vendors have a policy of "we're shutting you down, but we won't tell you why or how you can fix things so that it doesn't happen again".

I have had friends who have had their Twitter or Youtube accounts shut down with no explanation from the companies involved. Just recently, MailChimp shut down a brand new account for my SaaS (we had only 4 subscribers added, and hadn't sent out any email campaigns yet!) with a refusal to give us an explanation why. We set up another account and did everything exactly the same way (including tediously replicating lots of email templates manually) without the same thing happening. Why was the first account shut down? We will never know, it seems.

I am all for using AI to detect dark patterns and raising a flag, but I think these companies need to bring a more human aspect into the after effects. Surely a legitimate operator will always email in with a "WTF?" whereas a nefarious actor will simply automatically move on to the next thing?

<comment><USER24> Hi cyberferret. Two quick trys to provide some clarity for you here:

1\. On your vendors don't say why they took action point. I think a lot of vendors, us included, worry about the bad actors knowing the _how_ of our algorithms because they will then have intelligence on what to try and work around to avoid detection. It's a constant adversarial chess match we adjust, they adjust.

2\. As for the human element being needed for the after effects I totally agree. That said, I looked at our numbers and while many of the nefarious actors simply move to the next thing, a very large percentage of the, "WTF" replies are actually from bad actors hoping that is enough to be re-enabled and to keep going for a while. Our goal is to bring more people into the after effects and give them better information to make decisions and work with customers to avoid this kind of mess in the future.

<comment><USER23> I appreciate you giving an insight into the reasons behind your decisions Barry - I've learned a bit here myself, and can relate to the quandary that you must have to tiptoe around, in between being open and communicative, versus keeping your cards close to your chest. Thanks, and best of luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. A dude in the devops Slack channel had a great comment on the multi- cloud thing. "People can't even get redundancy and failover working on one cloud, why bother with two."

</comment><comment><USER25> If you are running a business then always have a good disaster recovery strategy. Split services between cloud providers and make sure your backups are good and offsite. You can do this all with opensource software if you dont want to pay for anything too (and if you have the staff that can do it).

If your business can be "killed" by your provider losing your data you have set yourself up to fail. I am not saying the provider is not to blame, but the burden should also be on the customer for not protecting themselves, what if DO burnt down?

We have yearly DR exercises, we have to bring up about 40 of our 120 production instances, it is a difficult task, but we know we can do it.

Never depend on your provider to save you, always make sure you have planed this out.

</comment><comment><USER26> I really liked their blog response. I logged a support case about the incident, and a rep personally called me and spent 30m on video chat with me answering my questions. I don't think that would _ever_ happen from GCP.

</comment><comment><USER27> > The initial account lock and resource power down resulted from an automated > service that monitors for cryptocurrency mining activity (Droplet CPU loads > and Droplet create behaviors).

So despite the fact that you can get the same or more resources at other providers who advertise their shared CPU resources for less than half that charged by DO I'm still buying a shared resource?

I think this is something that needs to be much more front and center. With AWS I can spin up as many "boxes" as I want on a moment's notice. As far as anything on DO's site seems to advertise I can do the same.

Turns out that's not so. If they wanted to shut down an account because they suspected it was compromised then that's one thing. Shutting it down simply because of suspected cryptocurrency activity... not so much. If I'm willing to pay for it then that's what I'm willing to pay for and there should be no limitations.

Now that becomes a little more clear as you read...

> determine if automated action is warranted to minimize the impact of > potential fraudulent high-cpu-loads on other customers.

So clearly we are not talking the same resources that were expected.

<comment><USER28> > So despite the fact that you can get the same or more resources at other > providers who advertise their shared CPU resources for less than half that > charged by DO I'm still buying a shared resource?

The account that got locked down triggered automatic checks that used payment history as a "these people are okay" check. They didn't have a payment history, they were running solely on credits, so got flagged. IOW, they hadn't paid for anything yet.

> With AWS I can spin up as many "boxes" as I want on a moment's notice

You can, but they can also shut you down for "abuse". [https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge- center/aws-a...](https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/aws- abuse-report/)

<comment><USER29> You have 24 hours to respond and why would you have a business and not be on at least their business support plan?

<comment><USER28> That's a very good question for their CTO. Maybe we should ask him on Twitter.

<comment><USER29> I'm referring to AWS's policy compared to DO's.

If he were using AWS or Azure and he had the same set of issues, I wouldn't blame him at all. But he is using a third rate cloud provider because it was cheaper and then he acts surprise that they don't have the same level of competence and support as AWS or Azure.

Yeah I purposefully left out GCP. I wouldn't trust their support anymore than DO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > Why isn't everyone on bare metal?

Is this how we're referring to running on servers we have contractual control over these days? Part of managing risk is being sure your infrastructure will stay there, and if you don't have a contract, your risk is significantly higher.

</comment><comment><USER30> Something tells me it scares DO too because I've been getting emails lately asking if I'm happy with their services.

</comment><comment><USER31> It feels like the need for multi-cloud designs and infrastructure are becoming more sensible. If costs are best with one provider, by all means put 95% of your traffic there... But keeping 5% running smoothly on a second cloud, with a simple means to rebalance between them would be a huge win. It would mean the difference between an annoyance (argh, one of my cloud providers doesn't work) and a disaster (my sole cloud provider just ended my company). It would also save you the next time AWS or Google's cloud have an outage.

Are there any good resources for deploying multi cloud architectures?

<comment><USER32> For a business, especially a startup, the opportunity cost often makes multi- cloud infeasible. You'd rather spend that engineering time on delivering features or addressing tech debt. I'm of the opinion that multi-cloud doesn't make much sense if your monthly cloud spend is less than at least $500k.

Pick one of the strong public cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, or GCP and then be judicious about which PaaS offerings you use to avoid unnecessary vendor lock in unless it adds enough value to justify the lock in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've asked this in a previous thread but didn't get much of an answer: what can a business do to proactively fend off issues with cloud providers shutting them down.

I've heard GCP (or was it AWS?) is less likely to shut you down if you bill on account vs using a credit card.

Are there any other things we can do to reduce problems?

Would asking for an account manager help? Would buying reserved instances help?

Is there a minimum spend that gets you more attention and priority? Eg 100/month vs 1k/month vs 10k/month etc?

Any other advice?

<comment><USER34> \- Use billing methods which are less likely to be used by scammers (e.g. likely not credit card).

\- Keep a steady balance.

\- Have luck (sad but true).

Minimum spend and similar might help with customer service (if they can see your spend). But most problems start with automated services.

Don't switch cloud providers every half year because another one is slightly cheaper now (i.e. have longer running/existing accounts), might help.

 __But most important make sure that you don 't get locked in by the could provider __

Even a permanent ban from the could provider should just cause some, not to high, short term (mony) loss. This means:

\- Do not ~use~ relay on cloud providers proprietary tec (sure use there management console, etc. but don't integrate it into your business to tightly).

\- Have control over your DNS names so that you can map them to different IP addresses if needed.

\- Make sure you can migrate to a different cloud provider in matters of hours/days/weeks (depending on what you use it for) at any time.

\- Have backups outside of the could provider for all your stuff. \- don't get trapped by doing backups on a different service of the same provider (e.g. Amazon) ;=)

In the end how much this costs you depend a lot on what you do and how you do it. And yes deciding and not doing any continous shot term investments taking the risk of loading everything is fine, you just should make the decision conscious.

<comment><USER33> Some good advice, thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I made this comment in an older thread but haven't gotten an answer on... the circumstances seem off to me:

The thing that has me scratching my head is how this chain of events unfolded.

I get that your fraud algorithm flagged it because of lack of established payment. how is this possible if what the tweet referred to as "locking us out of all of our backups and work"? surely an account history of any significance would have an established payment record. From their tweets they mention that they had 5 droplets and some storage of a not insignificant number of records (~500k) and that a script is required to be run every 2-3 months to process some data and that script spins up 10 droplets during that time. seems like it will take 13 hours to process the data based on row count and per record time.[0] I am struggling to see how they didn't have payment history. can you elaborate?

In addition another thing I'd think would help assuage fears of a complete lockout is some process where you can request and download the db or a snapshot of the virtual machine.

[0] [https://twitter.com/w3Nicolas/status/1134529322902007809](https://twitter.com/w3Nicolas/status/1134529322902007809)

<comment><USER24> Hi weaksauce... sorry I must have missed your earlier question.

The account had been live for some time and in that sense had history but because of credits it didn't have payment history. As some others have commented lots of startups use credits to get their business going and depending on your usage they can last you for quite a while. Payment history indicates a willingness and capability to make payments.

Part of the issue here was what triggers the algorithm used when looking at remaining credits, payment history (none), workload deltas (the new spin ups), and effective run rate (think of that as the amount of money they would be charged for the workload they were spinning up). The bug in this case was both simple and super impactful. Raisup did nothing wrong, everything right in fact. We just blew it.

Thanks for the comment on request for download of backups or snapshot. That is a great idea, I guess we just never expected to actually go shoot a real customer and the fraudsters don't ask for their data.

<comment><USER35> I appreciate the response. a followup question to that would be how they got enough credits to be running for that long without any payment?

<comment><USER24> DO has a startup program called Hatch: [https://www.digitalocean.com/hatch/](https://www.digitalocean.com/hatch/)

That is the starting place for many folks.

<comment><USER2> So a startup was getting their hosting entirely for free, their paying customers were Fortune 500 companies, but they didn't have the money to pay for off-site backups.

What the hell was their cost then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> There is a heck of a difference between "eh, it only costs $5-$10" and between "the survival of my project relies on the site/service being under my control. If it was the latter, you go in having a plan B and a contingency Plan c.

GCP, AWS, DO, Azure... they all bank on that sweet combination of huge clients and clients who do not really need them but due to opportunity costs, cant be bothered to find viable, self-reliant alternatives.

</comment><comment> reading-at-work I recently tried to sign up for a DO account to deploy a proof of concept app for my startup, and my account was immediately locked within minutes of opening it. I hadn't even spun up an instance yet. That combined with this means I'll be sticking with AWS for now, I suppose.

</comment><comment><USER37> I _want_ to love DO so much. I think they really do mean well and their products are great, but yeah, this kind of stuff scares me shitless for mission critical workloads.

</comment><comment><USER38> Don't use DigitalOcean for anything serious. My team and i frequently support DigitalOcean customers with issues like crashed applications failed builds and in many cases the challenge is how they (DigitalOcean) provide resource allocations for droplets. 1cpu != 1cpu which is vital for vm to perform at its best. AWS and GCP are better. i'd argue that most IaaS platforms are better than DIgitalOcean. You get what you pay for. i'm not a customer.

</comment><comment><USER39> The one thing that the author forgot or didn't realize to mention is:

Test moving your environment between service providers in production.

You should be able to failover from one provider to another, in a predictable way. You should actually do so every few months so that you're well versed in what needs to happen. If you practice this, you will be prepared in case the absolute worst happens.

</comment><comment><USER40> My account was banned two years ago just for accessing it from abroad. This is real, don't use DO.

They finally gave me temporary access even though they didn't believe who I was. This was the icing on the cake, they gave me access to a cluster, they could've given it to anyone.

It's cheap but seriously not worth it. They also have many more outages than other larger providers.

</comment><comment><USER41> Any stories of being screwed by AWS in the similar manner?

That is, excluding the stories about the same account being used to sell thing on Amazon.coma _and_ run a AWS setup. We know those are risky.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think Scaleway and UpCloud are two biggest contender to DO. ( Not sure why Linode is not getting traction, may be its security incidents )

<comment><USER2> Before I moved to DO I used Linode. My day job is a security consultant, I switched from Linode because of their repeated security incidents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> 'before switching to AWS completely'

why rely on a single party, you are putting all your eggs in a single basket again.

</comment><comment><USER44> > most appeals are true bad actors

is that really the case?

</comment><comment><USER45> Was there a post mortem by DO?

<comment><USER46> This was linked above

[https://blog.digitalocean.com/an-update-on-last-weeks- custom...](https://blog.digitalocean.com/an-update-on-last-weeks-customer- shutdown-incident/)

It doesn't explain any detail behind why there was radio silence until social media support stepped in, which is what I'm very curious about, but it does have a timeline of events and an apology.

</comment></comment><comment> mark-ruwt I'm a one-man startup and I couldn't disagree with this more.

If you want to "play" startup, feel free to put all your eggs in one basket. If you actually want to build something meaningful and long-lasting, and you have Fortune 500 customers, take a breath and invest time in an infrastructure that can't be destroyed by a single rogue algorithm.

After all of the horror stories we've heard over the years, how is that time investment (and ability to sleep well at night) not worth it?

<comment><USER47> > take a breath and invest time in an infrastructure that can't be destroyed > by a single rogue algorithm

As in? You can have your own cage, but somebody will have a cable that connects to the hardware you own. If they pull that cable because a single rogue algorithm told them that you're most likely abusing their service, that's it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> _I do not have all the details, so caveat lector, but apparently it was due to spinning up a dozen droplets and running a batch job._

If this is considered "abuse" Digital Ocean is not a platform you should be running a business on.

If you can't afford to pay for reliable big boy infrastructure, you might need to rethink your business plan or how much you charge.

</comment><comment><USER48> All this Digital Ocean talk... I spun up some droplets to play with a few months ago and liked what I saw and then "deactivated" them or turned them off.

What I did not expect to see a few days ago was the bill for the stopped droplets. Not just a little for the dormant disks I have had but seemingly full-prices for the entire droplets, as if they were all still "active". Nonetheless I deleted all my droplets, discarding whatever I had setup a few months ago, out of pure frustration. I never plan to return.

AWS may take me a little more time to setup and their interface may not be as pretty, but they will at least bill me fairly.

<comment><USER2> I just tried to turn off one of my droplets and had to click "okay" on a message that said "You will still be billed for Droplets that are turned off because your disk space, CPU, RAM, and IP address will still be reserved."

If you clicked okay without actually reading the message, that is entirely your own fault.

<comment><USER48> While I don't remember any such message, after a few months it's certainly felt wrong and I've felt the sting. It'll be something I take into consideration whenever I shop around again.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone else have a hard time coming up with ideas for projects? - <AUTHOR>

I work on boring enterprise software for my day job, and in my free time I try really hard to come up with project ideas that are manageable, completable, inspiring, and entertaining if not useful. But no matter how hard I try, I always end up brainstorming a bunch of ideas, then having to toss them out because of infeasibility, or because the idea already exists in some form and thus wouldn't be interesting to make, or because the idea flat out isn't interesting enough to work on.
Here are some examples of my ideas and justifications for tossing them out:
* Something for managing my bookmarks - nah, Chrome's built-in Bookmark Manager is fine for my purposes
* Trello allows people to make lists of lists. What other data structure could I draw from as inspiration for a web app? - nah, can't think of anything
* Make some software that makes chiptunes - nah, this exists already, and all the Michael Jackson chiptunes I want to make already exist (heh)
* Make a tiny dog food firing catapult - maybe, but I'd have to spend some time reading about Arduino or something
* Make an app that visualizes acne outbreaks over time - maybe, but the result isn't worth the effort. I don't want to look at my face anyway.
* Do some OCR - sounds boring
* Make a better DataTables - don't need it
* Write a GLSL parser and evaluate things in JavaScript for debugging purposes - would be cool, but don't really need it
* Make a web app to send yourself an email in the future - Google Calendar does this
* Write a program to control your laptop's fan speed - sounds boring
* What's this React nonsense - ehhh don't care, won't need it if I'm not making a single page app
And there's always game projects and procedural generation-ish stuff and graphics, but that's kinda it's own category of project and doesn't fit my criteria of being something useful.
Does anyone else have this problem? How do you go about getting ideas for projects? Please discuss. <comment><USER2> To build something successfully, there needs to be a certain motivation. This motivation comes from your goal. The question to ask is why do I want to build something?

1\. Are you building something for fun? Look at what you do for fun. Narrow down on these topics and then decide to build something. For e.g. spend a lot of time on HN? Build an HN Chrome/Firefox add-on that does things you want in HN.

2\. Are you building something for learning a new technology? Narrow down on the technology that you want to learn about. Now think of apps to build using that technology.

3\. Are you building something for additional revenue? Find pain points in your industry and create apps to solve them.

Without the right amount of motivation, even if you had started with any of the projects mentioned above, it is very likely that you would not be able to follow it through.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, that is very wise. I've never thought about things that way.

My motivation for projects has always been kinda screwy. On the one hand, I want to make an income on my side projects in order to someday move away from my rather boring job. On the other hand, I want to make fun and personal things like games, that aren't necessarily things that people would pay for. Most of the project ideas in my list reflect this split of motivation.

Wow, thanks for the insight. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think coming up with good ideas is like exercising its own muscle in your brain. I think with practice and constant reflection / analysis on whether or not ideas are likely to work, you will likely improve over time. I've enjoyed brainstorming new ideas for the web since around 2000. Many of my ideas early on I thought were good, but it turned out (on further reflection) I was probably wrong.

In the past few years, however, I've accumulated a pretty substantial stockpile of what I think are truly legit ideas that I am not in a position (without funding) to do justice to. To make things worse I'm not really seeking funding so I may never find out. Eventually I'll probably revisit the list and start putting them out there if the time that has passed hasn't made them irrelevant, or someone else hasn't already done it.

I think choosing the ideas you will pursue really needs to be tied closely to your goals / objectives.

[EDIT: After reading through some other comments it appears one in this thread is quite similar to the content that follows, but in my estimation different enough that it may be worth posting anyway]

Just interested in learning? Do a project that will allow you to learn about what interests you.

Just interested in making money? For starters my suggestion would be take an existing product / service (not patented) and make it better, or maybe tweak it slightly. The tougher / far riskier objective would be to take an untested idea to market and try to make money with it. Extrapolating that a solution to a pain point I experience is likely a viable business, or that just because a few people I know have an interest in an idea it must mean that many other people in the industry would likely pay for a packaged solution IMO is risky.

Want to do something to help make the world a better place? This, IMO, is probably the hardest type of idea to really turn into something worthwhile. Perhaps one of the easiest ways to chip away at this type of objective is take something you know well and share it with the world. Make an open source project out of it and license it with a nonrestrictive license such as MIT, BSD, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm assuming you are a developer of said enterprise software. Talk to your support engineers and operations folks who run this software on a day to day basis. Ask them what their pain points are. You may find they have plenty of ideas that may inspire you. You may also find they have built their own projects that they use for managing and supporting the software.

Source: support engineer / operations folk who spent many years running enterprise software on a day to day basis

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone at work writes a lot of Python for doing this already - this is a great idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't work on an idea just for the money.

Work on something that you will use. Something that you really want to exist and there are only sub-par or no alternatives out there. Whether this is something that will entertain you or fix a problem of yours.

It is most likely that if you find this product of use then someone out there in the world will think the same as well. However, this could be five people or thousands of people, it is hard to predict.

If it is really good then the money will follow, but instead of money, take satisfaction that you have created something from an idea and that there's at least one person other than you that is using it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Most entrepreneurs underestimate the difficulty and challenges that they'll face when they start something and if they knew how difficult it would be at the outset they wouldn't have started. Similarly, you seem to be assuming that you start with a great idea and you move in a straight line to its realization, however ideas evolve and where you end up may not be where you start. Maybe you just need to get started on something, and only by working thought the problem will you then discover the great idea.

</comment><comment><USER7> No. Coming up with ideas is easy. Coming up with ideas I'll care about in a month & be willing to make sacrifices to have time for often enough to make meaningful progress is what's hard.

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe your intentions are wrong.

Some people build things simply for the joy of building it.

In each idea you've discussed, you could easily carve out a special niche version you need for yourself.

If your goal is to make money from said project, well that is a different thing altogether.

I personally suggest you abandon punching keys into a keyboard and get into something like hardware-hacking.</comment>


Solar Power Battle Puts Hawaii at Forefront of Worldwide Changes - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/business/energy-environment/solar-power-battle-puts-hawaii-at-forefront-of-worldwide-changes.html <comment><USER3> The issue here is the mandate that when you create electricity with solar that the electric company _must_ buy that electricity from you as you feed it back into the grid, regardless if they currently need it or not based on demand. These power companies dont want to become energy storage companies, its too expensive. They prefer to simply make as much electricity at the moment as is needed.

I agree with the electric companies on this point. If they dont need the electricity, why should they be forced to buy it? That will increase costs for non-solar customers as they end up footing the bill for the battery storage needed by solar customers. I think the proper way to do these installs is to have customers always have on site batteries which store the energy for their own homes use. Yes, its nice to sell back electricity to the grid, but that feels like a very hackish way to use 'solar'. It makes sense also. If you want to save money on your electricity, you need to make your own, so you draw less from the grid- Not make it for someone else when nobody wants it.

Does anyone know if the power company is required to buy _all forms_ of electricity currently? Could you just setup thousands of solar panels in a field you own and demand money from the grid? Seems like a easy return on investment, depending on the cost of panels/equipment.

<comment><USER4> >I agree with the electric companies on this point. If they dont need the electricity, why should they be forced to buy it?

A) Because they are operating a utility _monopoly_. We are forced to be their customers. They should be forced to be ours.

B) They _could_ use it, but they would rather sell you the output from their oil fired power stations because _the profit is higher for them_. That is why they don't want your solar panels hooked up - _not_ because your neighbors couldn't use the electricity they generate - because it challenges their monopoly position and eats into their profit margins.

If this were _truly_ about electric companies not needing the electricity (as opposed to them viewing any challenge to their monopoly as a 'free market evil'), then they would be arguing for _market pricing_ for your solar generated electricity. They are not. They want your solar panels to be completely disconnected. Ideally you shouldn't even have them at all.

>Yes, its nice to sell back electricity to the grid, but that feels like a very hackish way to use 'solar'.

Your argument for how energy policy should be set are informed by what you think " _feels hackish_ "?

<comment><USER5> I'm really surprised people on HN don't see the complexity of having distributed power generation that you have no visibility on. I don't really think this is as trivial a problem as people seem to think it is.

As for the situation of selling power back to the grid, I would argue the solar users are still the customers. The power companies don't want it because the changes need to be paid for by current customers but only benefit ex- customers. The solar users are using the grid as a giant battery and an insurance policy for cloudy days.

If the power companies are paying what they charge, then the laws of physics say they are losing money due to losses to heat, etc. So of course their margins are higher on their power.

<comment><USER4> >I'm really surprised people on HN don't see the complexity

I never said it was a trivial problem. I said that it was a problem that the utility companies have a _vested interest in not solving_.

I'm really surprised that people on HN are blind to this.

>The power companies don't want it because the changes need to be paid for by current customers but only benefit ex-customers

This is false. The power companies do not want it even if it is paid for by current customers because even if it is, _it eats away at their profit margins_. Every kwh generated by a home owner's solar panel is not a kwh they are being paid for, even if they just use it themselves and don't transmit it across the grid.

<comment><USER5> At least in Hawaii there are a lot of independent energy producers, so your statement is appears to be wrong that they only want to sell their own power. While the majority is their own, it looks like 35%ish is independently generated.

They don't want to buy back power at the same rate they sell it, and since they can't control the nodes - the power from solar panels on homes is less valuable than that from larger independent producers since it costs more to control a distributed system. I'm sure they would buy it back, but people will be very angry about what they're willing to pay.

People are also free to get batteries if they don't like what the market prices are for buying electricity.

> I never said it was a trivial problem. I said that it was a problem that the > utility companies have a vested interest in not solving.

They probably would solve it, but they know that the cost of solving that subtracted from the rate they pay their energy producers is low enough that people will complain and it's not worth it. They probably come out ahead by not solving that problem, I'm not sure how you can mandate they solve a problem so people that want to go "off grid" don't have to buy their own batteries. That's really what they're trying to avoid - there is nothing preventing people from going completely off grid, they just don't want to buy their own batteries.

<comment><USER4> >At least in Hawaii there are a lot of independent energy producers, so your statement is completely false that they only want to sell their own power.

They're not doing that because they want to.

>They don't want to buy back power at the same rate they sell it

They don't want to buy power _at all_. Certainly not if they have existing capacity that they would rather use. _Definitely_ not if it is a future threat to their bottom line.

>People are also free to get batteries

Batteries are a much more inefficient way of using power than selling it to your neighbor.

>They probably would solve it, but they know that the cost of solving that subtracted from the rate they pay their energy producers is low enough that people will complain and it's not worth it.

Let's not pretend they're not solving the problem for our benefit. This is about their profits.

>I'm not sure how you can mandate they solve a problem so people that want to go "off grid" don't have to buy their own batteries.

Because they are a monopoly and a utility. We mandate they solve problems because otherwise they will just milk their monopoly for all its worth and the only party that benefits from that is them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hawaii is a particular shit show when it comes to electricity utilities. From their own page on renewable energy, no less:

 _Electricity can be made from a variety of energy sources. Some are fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. Over 90 percent of all the energy used in Hawaii for electricity, surface and air transportation comes from imported fossil fuels, mostly oil but some coal. (The synthetic natural gas used in Hawaii is refined here from crude oil.)_

I think nobody here has the patience to wait for this particular dynosaur- consuming monster to catch up.

Heres their current fuel mix:

[http://www.hawaiianelectric.com/heco/Clean-Energy/Latest- Cle...](http://www.hawaiianelectric.com/heco/Clean-Energy/Latest-Clean-Energy- News/About-Our-Fuel-Mix?cpsextcurrchannel=1#5)

Scroll down to see to see Oil listed at >60%.

<comment><USER7> Pretty harsh criticisms. You must be an expert. Ok, what electrical generation capacity would you have built for Hawaii?

<comment><USER8> Distributed solar on roofs, offshore wind, and combined cycle natural gas for peaking and base load until renewables complete their buildout.

<comment><USER9> Hawaii could copy Iceland and add geothermal to solar and wind.

It has plenty of hills to build a bit of pumped hydro storage on too.

<comment><USER10> Iceland has excellent Geothermal resources.

Hawaii, if you actually sit down and look at where the geothermal resources are (big island and a tiny amount on Maui, not where 90+% of electricity is used on Oahu), will force you to conclude that they couldn't copy Iceland and are stuck with other renewables.

<comment><USER11> The distance from the big island to Oahu appears to be feasible for an underwater HVDC cable (eg [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basslink) ). If the geothermal was cheap enough, this might be worthwhile.

<comment><USER12> 370km, nice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems inevitable that continued advances in PV will either destroy the power utilities or force them to reinvent their business as electricity brokers (focusing on distribution and/or storage).

Regulatory capture can slow this trend. But as the article indicates, it's only temporary. Advances in energy storage and moderated consumption allows customers to disengage from the grid entirely.

<comment><USER14> I feel like this is one good example of big changes coming to the world and traditionally established big business in the next 5-10-25 years. Hilariously, many of the following big business have "guaranteed profits" from the Government, which is also going to have to change.

If you're in the business of making electricity by burning stuff, or you sell oil, or cable TV, or internet, or 50 other good examples, you had better start reinventing your business now.

Those business make very rich people richer, so they're going to fight it tooth and nail, which is a shame when they could be putting that effort into reinvention.

<comment><USER15> >Hilariously, many of the following big business have "guaranteed profits" from the Government, which is also going to have to change.

I doubt that will change. If you want companies to have enormous amounts of idle capacity waiting around for a cloudy day then you have to make sure they can make money.

<comment><USER14> We're not going to need that capacity anymore, so we don't need the companies anymore.

i.e. when the massive majority of houses and business have their own solar and storage, we don't need to pour billions into coal plants and the grid to have it sitting around waiting for... nothing.

<comment><USER15> I don't see how that will ever make sense. The only way you can guarantee your house will have enough power is to overbuild the storage by quite a bit. It's not worth the money.

<comment><USER14> When the majority of houses have a good amount of solar and storage, then the grid we already have will be more than enough, therefore it can go into "maintenance" mode. (likely even reduction, I suspect)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Isn't Hawaii a special case because of its isolation?

If so many people install solar in Southern California or Arizona that the local utility has more power coming in during the day than it can use or store, it can sell the excess via the national grid to someplace that can use it.

As far as I've been able to determine from the internet, there is no connection between Hawaii power grids and the mainland. In fact, it looks like the grids of each island might be isolated from the others.

<comment><USER17> Exactly. None of the islands grids are connected. I worked for a power plant on the big island a few years ago and even then there was a big issue with too much power during the day and not enough at night. Coupling that with the intermittent wind power and you have a very hard grid to maintain.

<comment><USER15> Why _aren 't_ they connected? Is it just too expensive? Seems like it would be a big advantage to do so.

<comment><USER18> NextEra (the energy company that recently bought HECO) is looking to do just this. A Sept. 2013 report by them estimates a capital cost of approximately $600 million for a 200 MW cable connect between Maui and Oahu. (source page 8 of [1])

This is the low end of the scale with other estimates ranging from $553 Million to $1.24 Billion (page 9).

Note that this does not connect the Big Island to the grid either.

The preliminary proposed route can be seen on page 84 of the report.

[1] [http://nexteraenergyhawaii.com/pdf/initial_comments.pdf](http://nexteraenergyhawaii.com/pdf/initial_comments.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think that a home battery product from Tesla might help with some of these worries. If the rumors are true, Tesla want to take their existing car battery technology and turn it into a wall mountable product. This would allow homeowners to generate their own electricity during the day and use it at night. I'm not saying that people will completely drop off of the grid (though I'm sure some will) but it might be a way for the utility companies to manage peak demand. There is possibly even a good small business idea in building software to handle this type of thing.

</comment><comment><USER20> The cost is still too high, so the electric companies have little to worry about in the short run as long as they can find ways to improve their own margins. Of course lobbying for regulatory fees and reduced buy-back rates is one way to do that, but the utilities best be careful there. That could cause a blow back reaction.

In the long run though it is all downhill. Battery tech is getting better at around 8% per year. Solar efficiency isn't far behind. What cost $20,000 now to add solar or $40,000 to get off-grid completely, will cost half that in about 10 to 15 years. If the trend lines continue then in 20 to 30 years years its a done deal. No house will ever be built again without it's own power generation system.

<comment><USER21> You can't get off the grid completely unless you are a) willing to suffer some downtime occasionally, b) way overbuild storage as compared to typical needs, or c) have your own backup fossil fuel generator.

Any way you cut it high availability costs money. If you expect the grid to handle backup for you then you should expect to pay them to do so. TANSTAAFL

<comment><USER20> I don't think (a) is true because (b) and/or (c) is exactly what people will eventually do --although in the case of (c) it will be hydrogen fuel cells.

<comment><USER22> It costs at least some $400/kWh for battery storage. That amounts to $12k dollars for each house for supplying _average consumption_ ; that's a huge cost already. If you want (a) to be false, I guess you need to multiply that by two at least. It just doesn't make sense to make each house do it individually, the grid is a wonderful technology that reduces this risks, smooths consumption and provides storage/generation economies of scale. It just doesn't make sense to abolish it entirely for all but the most isolated places.

<comment><USER23> I pay about $150/mth on electricity ($1800/yr), if your numbers are to be believed, then it would take about ~13.2 years to pay off a 24k battery pack, this doesn't include the cost of the panels which would probably be another 24K, so roughly a 26 years to pay off (Probably the working life of the panels) So basically at current prices the cost is on par with my utility. It's not amazing, but with the right gov't incentives and future advancements in battery and solar technology I don't see why we couldn't see renewables edge out the dominant players. Sucks for me though, just finished my B.eng in mechanical with specialization in thermal power generation.

<comment><USER24> I was just discussing this with someone who installed solar panels on their house about 8 months ago. I think your numbers are a little bit off.

We live in south western ohio and said person took their bill from $300-400/mo to $30/mo (at 13 cents per kWh) with $11k of solar panels. They have a payoff period of about 3 years not including the $4k rebate they got which reduces the payoff cost to a little under 2 years.

Keep in mind this is a place that doesn't get nearly as much sun as much more southern areas/Hawaii.

I do agree that batteries still have a payoff period that is too long to be economical. Here's rooting for Mr. Musk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I once worked at a utility studying this very issue.

The typical worries about solar are:

+Power intermittency (rapid, uncontrolled changes in power can push the voltage and frequency outside acceptable levels. This reduces reliability and can destroy electronics.)

+Voltage regulation (also, on a local level, PV can mess with voltage compensators, pushing voltage outside of acceptable levels at the end of voltage regulation zones)

+Morning power surplus (lots of solar power will drop the baseline demand from ~4AM to noon, reducing the amount of cheap baseline power you can run)

+Harmonics (crummy inverters can inject unwanted sine wave harmonics into the grid, again bad for electronics)

+Fault current danger (if a tree takes down a power line, both sides can be remain live if power is being pushed onto the grid by PV on both sides)

+Inverter tripping (the main way to fix the fault current problem is to mandate that inverters passively follow the grid's voltage/frequency and then disconnect if they detect problems. However, with high PV penetration this has its own problem: a transient fluctuation can cause a domino chain reaction where all the inverters turn off, taking the grid down with them.)

+Power factor/vars (one important function for the grid is to keep current and voltage in phase, but today's PV inverters are dumb and blindly produce power with a power factor of 1, which can mess with automatic capacitor banks meant to help counteract the inductive load of the grid)

Now, some of these problems are more real than others, and many don't become an issue until PV penetration reaches like 30%.

The good news is that these are all solvable problems. Energy storage or additional natural gas peakers can fix the intermittency problem, and for the other problems the grid can be redesigned to allow better two-way power flow and inverters can be designed to produce higher quality power.

However, the bad news is that all of these fixes are expensive and all of them take years. Furthermore, many utilities do not have the expertise or confidence to make big changes to their grid and still guarantee reliable high quality power. Utilities are known for being slow and risk-averse, but they are risk-averse for a reason - blackouts are very costly to society.

Another issue for the utility is how to charge for power. Historically, utilities have tried to keep things simple for residential customers by charging only for power consumed. However, if residential PV becomes popular, utilities will have no choice but to change their pricing model so that they can be compensated for the non-kWh value they provide (e.g., reliability, stability, option value, power quality regulation).

The bottom line is that the problems from high PV penetration are real. Utilities are cautious, not evil, and they have good reasons to be. (Also, I think it's ridiculous when people claim that PV will kill utilities - <USER2> a radical shift in technology/economics, wires and pooled power regulation and economies of scale make a grid hugely valuable, even if power generation becomes more distributed.)

That said, these are all solvable problems and I am hopeful and optimistic about the long-term future of solar power.

<comment><USER26> > However, the bad news is that all of these fixes are expensive and all of > them take years

As a power electronics control engineer I strenuously disagree. The historical problems with massive renewable penetration aren't just solvable, they are well-solved already!

For example, grid-tied inverters and PFC rectifiers have been meeting IEEE-519 harmonics guidelines for many years already.

We even have virtual impedance methods which provide harmonic and reactive _support_ for the grid available right now. The problem is that the utilities have actively blocked their implementation!

The grid accepted an almost total transformation from nonlinear RCD computer loads to PFC-corrected loads without difficulty at all, and there are far more switching power supplies on the line than there are active inverters. So I view the "problem" with unity power factor inverters as a red herring.

Anti-islanding has been in effect for many years already, which completely eliminates the "felled tree leaves live wires" problem. Again, another non- problem.

Consider very carefully what you get from the entrenched utilities, because they are coming to the table with a tremendous amount of preexisting bias.

<comment><USER25> Great points, thanks.

I did not mean to imply that all of the typical worries were well-founded (as you say, harmonics has been solved for years), but now I realize that's how my comment read, so I apologize. My point was that there are factors other than intermittency that historically have stopped utilities from enthusiastically supporting residential solar.

Also, I wholeheartedly agree with you that the solutions to these problems already exist. When I said they'd take years, I meant it would take years to implement the solutions, not to invent them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have a solar startup that specifically focuses on automating interaction with utilities, and the excitement and ambition in the solar industry right now is off the charts. There is an unbelievable amount of momentum in favor of solar, and most solar companies see these problems as totally solvable. Hawaii is seen as a microcosm for the way the rest of the U.S. will be in 10 years or less.

Here's some of the things that solar has going for it:

1\. The Governor of California recently set a mandate to reach 50% renewables by 2030[1]. We want to hit this target in ten years or less.

2\. The Department of Energy's Sunshot initiative is funding solar technology and software development to drive the installed cost below $1 per watt by 2017[2]. So far, we are on track to hit these targets.

3\. Batteries are getting super cheap, which will turn solar into a non- intermittent source and allow solar+storage to be just as cheap as grid prices[3]. In fact, there is actually quite a bit of worry about grid defection (we are starting to see this Hawaii)[4].

4\. Wall Street is funding solar projects at a massive rate[5]. The bottleneck right now in solar is finding customers, not financiers.

5\. The federal subsidy for solar is expiring in 2017, but the industry is on track to absorb the cost and continue to thrive without any subsidy[6]. This will make us much harder to kill off politically.

6\. The advent of community solar will solve the renting problem, where renters be able to buy pieces of a remote solar farm since they don't own their roofs[7]. This opens up the solar market to serve the entire electricity-using population, not just the building owners.

What will be hard:

Stranded assets. Solar is growing so quickly that it will soon be able to replace the capacity of existing fossil-based generators that still have lifespan[8]. Investors in those assets will see them stranded. This will start with coal and natural gas plants over the next 10 years, but as batteries get cheaper and electric cars get more prevalent solar will start stranding oil assets[9].

This is where things get hard. Utilities are traditionally pretty bad competing (since they usually don't have to), but oil companies are another story. They are very used to ruthless competition and have a lot of experience bribing their way into governments. We are expecting very heavy push back from oil after 2025 because electric vehicles risk leaving already purchased oil in the ground.

I, for one, can't wait until we fight that fight. It is the fight that our generation will be remembered for.

P.S. The entire solar industry is hiring (including my startup).

[1]: [http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-renewable- goal...](http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-renewable- goals-20150108-story.html)

[2]: [https://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sunshot/pdfs/dpw_white_pa...](https://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/sunshot/pdfs/dpw_white_paper.pdf)

[3]: [http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/14/energy-storage-about-to- get-...](http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/14/energy-storage-about-to-get-big-and- cheap/)

[4]: [http://www.rmi.org/electricity_grid_defection](http://www.rmi.org/electricity_grid_defection)

[5]: [http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/23/why-wall- st...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/12/23/why-wall-street-is- learning-to-love-solar-energy.aspx)

[6]: [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/What-Happens- Wh...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/What-Happens-When-the-ITC- Expires)

[7]: [https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Solar-Summit- Sl...](https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Solar-Summit-Slide-Show- The-Evolution-of-Solar)

[8]: [http://www.utilitydive.com/news/jon-wellinghoff-utilities- ar...](http://www.utilitydive.com/news/jon-wellinghoff-utilities-are-not- driving-clean-energy-growth/292912/) Disclosure: Jon is one of our advisors.

[9]: [http://theenergycollective.com/energydeborah/2216626/podcast...](http://theenergycollective.com/energydeborah/2216626/podcast- energy-247-are-stranded-assets-oil-and-gas-myth-or-reality)

</comment><comment><USER28> An excellent overview of the scale at which we need to integrate renewables:

      http://www.vox.com/2015/4/15/8420297/fossil-fuels-race-renewables

</comment><comment><USER29> Is it really that hard to forecast the amount of power residential PV generates? I'm pretty sure you could build a model that is pretty good just based on weather data, but failing that why not just put a single small PV panel on each (plant, substation, power pole... choose your level of granularity) and have it report back the amount of solar energy in that location? That should get you a very good idea of the amount of power coming in.

</comment><comment><USER30> What would happen if tens of millions of vehicles started feeding power grids while sitting in parking lots. I think that could happen someday soon.

Edit: Bob Bruninga has written a bit about solar power in cars. Great content. [http://www.aprs.org/APRS-SPHEV.html](http://www.aprs.org/APRS-SPHEV.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> If the utilities drag their feet, their could be reasonably good micro/neighborhood/apartment complex-level solutions - $100-250k of batteries on a loan & small buy-in per-unit, and the batteries & smart-system can optimize the buy/sell process around historical/current usage & prices & storage levels.

</comment><comment><USER32> HECO is the central and most prominent racket of all on those islands. Just ask anybody living there.

</comment><comment><USER33> It is an interesting conundrum. I'm looking forward to whole house inverters with decent battery packs to take me completely off grid. At that point a simple fuel cell tied to the gas line to top off the battery pack when low on energy and you're good to go.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can anyone comment on the claim that private solar power generation affects the stability of the grid? What kinds of infrastructure changes would be needed to properly support power generation in private homes?

<comment><USER26> There is a disconnect between market forces in energy production right now.

Right now, short-term grid frequency and voltage stability (periods of seconds to a few min) is regulated automatically by the governor response of the various generators on the grid. These governors bid in advance to set their proportional gain for frequency stability. Basically, they promise to autonomously raise or lower their throttle in the future based on the observed grid frequency and voltage, and get paid later when they make good on their promise. Long-term stability (periods of 15 min or so) are regulated with market action in the spot market for power. Very long term stability is regulated by markets that clear 24 hours in advance of their estimated delivery.

However, some energy producers effectively have flat rate contracts that don't participate directly in grid stability. Wind and nuclear will negotiate a fixed power-purchase agreement (typical prices are about 50 USD/MW-hr or so in the US) that will be fixed for years at a time. Likewise, residential solar customers sell back their power under the same, basically fixed rate schedule that they use to buy power.

So, as the penetration of fixed-rate power increases into the market, the pricing volatility continues to increase as well. There are technologies that can help. In fact, it is trivially easy to get a grid-tied inverter to be sensitive to grid changes with controls that model virtual inertia, impedance, throttle, and so on. This is part of what I do as a controls engineer. The difficulty isn't in implementing such controls, it is in adjusting the markets such that all of the existing players are comfortable with the result.

Witness this in Hawaii - the retail price of power is so high that it makes obvious good sense to install your own generation. But instead of adjusting the rates to reflect the new availability of supply, the incumbent utility seeks to raise barriers to competition instead.

<comment><USER34> _...the retail price of power is so high that it makes obvious good sense to install your own generation. But instead of adjusting the rates to reflect the new availability of supply, the incumbent utility seeks to raise barriers to competition instead._

Incumbents elsewhere might find themselves in similar situations. If they react the same way, enough localized generation and storage will appear that they will find their business unworkable at any rate level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Pretty awesome. The energy companies would turn from energy producers to energy storage and distribution. Really exciting indeed! =)

<comment><USER15> The root of the problem here is storage is more expensive than production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> anybody else confused about why a guy who lives in Hawaii, one of the most temperate climates in the populated world, is spending $700 per month in electricity?

serious question for Hawaiians: do people run the a/c round the clock there? Or is it something else?

<comment><USER37> I live on the big island and pay over $.40/KWH so a $700 bill would be more like $200 on the mainland.

That is one reason why my new house is off grid solar - cheap (compared to $.40/KWH), clean electricity.

The other is that the grid here is unreliable. I had 87 outage events last year for a total of 37 hours and that is not including the nine days with out power post hurricane.

Now don't get me started on internet quality!!!</comment></comment>