#Resist: Meetup - <AUTHOR> https://www.meetup.com/pro/resist/?campaign=email2017 <comment><USER2> I had used meetup to find local non-political hobby-type interest groups, I don't recall agreeing to become part of a political resistance movement when I signed up. Now they're overtly political, I do not want to use it. I'm not pro-trump, I'm not even a US resident. But when you make the non-political political, I lose all interest in using it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Meetup.com sends an email to (all?) members that says

"... after the recent executive order aimed to block people on the basis of nationality and religion, a line was crossed. At a time when core democratic ideals feel under attack, we feel a duty to spark more civic participation."

I had not thought of Meetup as a political company, but this reads as a very strong statement. It's successful advertising, because I've been thinking about them for several minutes straight. Will this impress everyone, or will they be sending an apology note tomorrow?

<comment><USER4> Interesting that the executive order doesn't block anybody on the basis of religion, yet they continue to repeat this false claim.

</comment></comment><comment> rkuykendall-com Checked out my local ( Manhattan ) group. One of the first events:

"Find ways to ensure that Democrats are voted out of Congress

Historically, Democratic politicians have been against the Second Amendment and other vital rights. Mayors in NYC and other large cities, in addition, are supporting what goes on in Congress when these restrictive practices are enacted. We should do what we can to assist the new president in combating individuals who spend their time working against the Constitution."

So... this is going about as well as I expected a political meetup group with no leadership to go.

</comment><comment><USER5> To spam an entire userbase to put forth your political beliefs is insane.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sharing, because I thought this is probably the most intentional stand I've seen a tech company take so far.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you pay yourselves? - <AUTHOR>

I'm aware this can vary by quite a bit by where people are. I'm involved in a local incubator, techstars/y-combinatoresque type of program (called BoomStartup). My cofounder and I are trying to figure out the best way to pay ourselves (to pay for rent, food, etc). We've been talking with a few people including financial people and attorneys but there hasn't yet been a good consensus on any of these three main options: 1) Pay ourselves as employees and deal with payroll taxes; 2) Pay ourselves as contractors and deal with taxes later; 3) Pay a dividend based on shares and pay capital gains tax (and we'd have to set something up with the incubator so we don't pay them for the shares they are holding, which we've already discussed with them and they are totally fine with doing - they are the only other people on our cap table).<p>I just thought I'd see what suggestions people here might have regarding this. I'm still trying to figure out the benefits and consequences of each method. <comment><USER2> _I'm involved in a local incubator, techstars/y-combinatoresque type of program (called BoomStartup)_

They should have someone who can advise you on this. I think if you are at this early stage, you should be paying these expenses out of your savings. Was the money from the incubator paid to you personally, or the business?

If your startup is currently making money, you should be reinvesting that into the business. If it's you and a cofounder in a small apartment/office, you can probably pay rent, electricity, internet, etc., from the business checking account.

</comment><comment><USER3> IANAL, but the "pay a dividend" approach can cause problems. It's generally illegal to pay a dividend which makes a company insolvent (for some definition of "insolvent"); and in many jurisdictions it's also illegal to pay dividends beyond a company's profits (for some definition of "profits").

If the company is spectacularly successful none of this will matter, of course -- but if the company fails, you'll want to be able to put it behind you without being hauled into court by allegations of fraudulent conveyance.

</comment><comment><USER4> Initially I moved savings into the business and started taking a draw. It might make sense to do this as payroll. I think regularity is important so you can ignore home issues and focus on the business.

For several years, I've given myself a bimonthly check. When I hired an employee, he got the same rate. It's relatively low, but keeps me frugal at home.

Eventually, I added a $15/month retirement deposit. It was all I could afford at the time and eventually increased it to $416/mo. (max a Roth IRA allows).

</comment><comment><USER5> I haven't gotten to the point of paying myself, but I'd probably just pick the easiest thing - paying myself as an employee. I think there are calculators online that show how much to deduct, etc. And then you avoid shooting yourself in the foot by paying a huge percentage come tax season (if you did it as a contractor).

</comment><comment><USER6> My understanding is that the correct way to handle this is to pay yourself as an employee.

I run my personal payroll through Intuit online payroll with direct deposit. It costs me a few bucks each month, but the time I spend not thinking about payroll is well worth it.

</comment><comment><USER7> You're paying yourself? I would highly suggest keeping as much cash in the business as possible and put off paying yourself for as long as possible. You'll suffer now but thank yourself later. Get entrepreneurial on how to score free rent and food.

<comment><USER8> Scoring free rent and food sounds like almost as much work as the startup itself.

I guess if you're in a college town, you could just pretend to be a student and attend student club meetings for the free pizza. I don't know how to handle the rent. You could always seduce girls, I guess. But that seems time consuming. And if you can score free food and seduce girls _already_ , maybe your youth would be better spent that way rather than in a startup?</comment></comment>


Tech Companies Help Make NSA Surveillance Possible—and They Can Help Stop It - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/11/22/nsa_surveillance_google_facebook_and_other_companies_can_help_stop_it.html

<comment><USER2> They'll do what makes their shareholders richer. They'll keep helping surveillance unless doing so hits them where it hurts - money. If the general public valued privacy more than convenience, they'd start avoiding services and products from these companies. I wouldn't bet on that.</comment>


Most underrated JavaScript tool - <AUTHOR> http://www.yolpo.com <comment><USER2> This is fun, but I'm not sure it's actually very useful as a debugging tool. There are some _brilliant_ debugging tools for JS these days. It's quite easy to connect an IDE like VSCode to a browser using the node debugger, which gives you proper breakpoints and inspections. Alternatively, in-browser tools like Chrome devtools give you much, much more than this script too.

If you want to interactively tinker with some JS then [https://repl.it/languages/javascript](https://repl.it/languages/javascript) or [https://jsbin.com/](https://jsbin.com/) are really good too.</comment>


Ask HN : Chrome 6 and 7 getComputedStyle(el,prop) is lying, did anyone notice? - <AUTHOR>

If you try to ask a property like color : getComputedStyle(element,"color") through javascript, for a know HTML element of your page the browser will lie and never tell you the real displayed color. <comment><USER2> Chrome is following Mozilla's change on this point, which was designed to solve the longstanding CSS history leakage problem, where a page could use computed styles to slurp your browsing history: [http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2010/03/31/plugging-the- css...](http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2010/03/31/plugging-the-css-history- leak/)

Is it lying for _all_ elements, though? It should only really be lying about the "visited" styling of links or sub-elements of links (it'll return the computed style as if they were unvisited).

<comment><AUTHOR> Not for all elements, but even if they say that is not going to create issues, i am already noticing styling troubles here and there on the web. This is not a good practice. The CSS history leakage problem is not so serious. Much worse are timing attack based on your cached images to check your history. And they do exist. More over it seems that somebody already got a trick around Mozilla's fix [http://privacylog.blogspot.com/2010/08/mozillas-css- visited-...](http://privacylog.blogspot.com/2010/08/mozillas-css-visited- solution-is-still.html) Does anybody think there is a way to exploit even this ? If so, Mozilla's team should be informed.</comment></comment>


A Series of Recent Rejection Letters - <AUTHOR> http://www.pointsincase.com/articles/a-series-of-recent-rejection-letters <comment><AUTHOR> Put together by a wonderful former co-worker of mine and absolutely priceless.</comment>


Babies Hacking - <AUTHOR>

So I'm a nascent hacker and father and the similarities between the two are, to me, astounding.
With both yesterday's crowning achievement is quickly lost to the gravity of today's task. The psychological ups and downs as well as the motivation and risk inherent in it just blows me away sometimes.
The craziest similarity I've seen to date is the potential each has to shake the world itself.
Just as any project could be the next google or facebook so to any child could be the next... You can fill in the blank.
What do you see, or think, about this analogy? <comment><USER2> If you experiment with a project and you mess it up, you abandon the project and move on. I don't think it works that way with kids.

If you are working on a project, it is subject to your will, and though you may not have complete control all the time, your project has no free will or mind of its own like a human being does.

There is, however, a similarity in the effectual nature of having to make smart improvisations in both ha.cking on projects and raising kids

</comment><comment><USER3> you are right, but not every child can't be Einstein and not every project can be Google or Facebook. Be happy, if you can make a living out of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> But every one can be valuable in it's own sphere.

So do child labour laws protect premature code?

Does iterate entail disiplining a child or trying to have another?</comment></comment>


Road Tripping Around Europe in a Tesla Is Less Fun Than You'd Think - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-road-trip/ <comment><USER2> I really don't get why all the charging networks in Europe require you to sign up, get a card, download an app, etc. It's ridiculous. My sister drives an electric car, they have 5 cards from different charging networks, and she still struggles to find a charger that actually lets her charge.

Every gas station accepts normal debit and credit cards. There is no gas station that requires you to sign up before filling your tank. It is ridiculous.

Why can't the charging networks just install a normal credit/debit card reader and let people pay with their normal cards? It's mind-boggling.

<comment><USER3> _I really don 't get why all the charging networks in Europe require you to sign up, get a card, download an app, etc. It's ridiculous._

2019's "sign up, get a card, download an app" is like 1990's "Leave your name and contact information. Our sales people will contact you."

<comment><USER4> > 1990's

There are many sites like that on the internet today. Ever had to buy enterprise software?

<comment><USER5> Those products typically go right to the end of my list.

<comment><USER6> For what it's worth, that's exactly what they want you to do if you're only casually interested in the product.

<comment><USER5> I find this interesting. Don't you want to spread knowledge about and sympathy for your product as wide as possible to get a good base of advocates, eventually reaching decision makers? (See: Student licenses, open source and such)

<comment><USER6> Totally depends on the product. OSS? Social? Consumer? Media? Sure! Enterprise/Productivity? Not as much.

What you want is your sales team following high probability of conversion leads.

If I make you jump through a few hoops just to talk to a sales person, then I've already weeded out most of the people who wouldn't buy it anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The funny thing is, I made the trip from Lille, France (near where I live) to Poznan in Poland, a few stops required all along and no problem - more than 2000km on a few days.

In the summer, in France, Lille to Alps then Ardeche and no problem.

Same for my past vacations here in the South of France (Ardeche, France), around 1000 km long trip and same for getting back here.

I've been using my Tesla (TS85D) since Nov2015, and the only time I had a short stress was while I went seeing Elon Musk in Paris because there were hundred of Teslas in the same area.

So, frankly, I respect the author of this article, but I think if you're following what is displayed on board and adding a little logical thinking and planning a bit your trip in some remote areas (Britany for example) (with OpenChargeMap or ChargeMap applications among others), then it's all good.

<comment><USER8> That's the problem. The author admits to not using the onboard charging navigation but instead used Google Maps to plan the trip. She's intentionally being obtuse to make the article clickbait and make EVs look bad.

<comment><USER9> The whole point of the article was that EVs (in this case, specifically Teslas) are not yet ready to be driven like normal cars, i.e., without regard to planning refueling stops.

It's not clickbait, it's literally the point of the test and the resultant article.

<comment><USER10> I'd like to see the opposite story: where a reporter drives an ICE car around town for a week and then it suddenly dies in the middle of the road because you have to go to a special station to refuel it instead of doing it in your garage every night.

It's true that road trips take a bit more care. (Although not much; all you have to do is put your destination into the car's navigation system, then make charging stops where it tells you to.) But "normal" cars aren't free of hassle either.

<comment><USER8> You just hit the nail on the head. Anything can be made to seem like a hassle if framed a certain way and that's my problem with this article. Everything is framed to make it seem worse than it is while simultaneously ignoring the benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Instead of stopping at the Metz supercharger like the onboard navigation[1] would tell her to, this reporter with an axe to grind decides to do stupid things like charging to 100% to make a clickbaity article.

[1] Web version: [https://www.tesla.com/trips/#/?v=MS_2017_100D&o=Paris,%20Fra...](https://www.tesla.com/trips/#/?v=MS_2017_100D&o=Paris,%20France_Paris%20Paris%20Île- de- firstname.lastname@example.com,2.3522219000000177&s=&d=Mannheim,%firstname.lastname@example.com,8.466039499999965)

<comment><USER12> From Paris to Metz is roughly 205 miles. Her car had a range of 215 miles and she notes that the onboard estimates have been off "by at least 10 percent every time". But you're telling me that the navigation would still recommend her to attempt that kind of leg, in an area where chargers may be sparse? Seems like bad UI/UX.

<comment><USER13> The parent posted a trip plan for a longer-range configuration. Switch to a smaller battery and... it shows a stop more or less right where the author's first planned stop was.

The dialogue on all sides around Teslas is so exhausting. This article isn't even _about_ Tesla, really.

<comment><USER14> The OP just seems like another Tesla/Elon fanboy.

I fully support what Elon and Tesla are doing, but this Bloomberg article accurately points out the downsides of owning a Tesla, especially if it's your primary car.

If you're mostly using a Tesla to get around town and charging at home, it's makes sense, but you'd be better off renting a car for road trips and not having to deal with this hassle.

A lot of people in America have not and still don't buy diesels because those gas stations are not as ubiquitous as normal fuel. The problem exists to an even greater degree for electric cars, not to mention the amount of time you have to sit around waiting for charging.

<comment><USER15> > A lot of people in America have not and still don't buy diesels because > those gas stations are not as ubiquitous as normal fuel.

American diesel owner here and I initially had some concerns about this but it's the opposite problem of Tesla, thanks to trucks it's never hard to find diesel on road trips. It can be a little harder around town, but since the range is so far (500+ miles) I've never had a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Stories like this vaguely confuse me, typically the driver complains about not being able to find a charger repeatedly.

I bought a Tesla model 3 recently, hooray tax credits.

There is literally a button on the map screen that tells you how to get to the nearest chargers both Tesla and otherwise and if they, for the Tesla chargers, are available. This will then happily navigate you to the charger via GPS.

It seems like for a technology that is pretty frankly an early adopter thing, that using the tools provided rather than expecting it to work like a gas car is expected.

<comment><USER17> Precisely. If I had a natural gas or hydrogen car, I would expect to plan in advance for refueling. For an electric car, I would also plan in advance even though the car has the option to find the nearest station (better to avoid being out of range of a quick charger and having to spend more time than necessary at a slower station).

So yeah, I completely agree that it should be assumed to be more involved than the currently mass-market vehicles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article is so hard to read. 'Over 10 hours of charging', seven of those being while plugged-in and sleeping at a hotel, and 1.5h wasted on unnecessarily topping up to 100%. She also plays the 'cold battery' card but ends up making it to the destination with battery to spare.

Tesla has a trip planner that routes you to a 12-lane supercharger station [1]. This is not a complicated journey _at all_ and only requires one ~30m charge each way. Somehow the author turned it into an anxiety-inducing odyssey.

[https://www.tesla.com/trips#/?v=MS_2017_100D&o=Paris,%20Fran...](https://www.tesla.com/trips#/?v=MS_2017_100D&o=Paris,%20France_Paris%20Paris%20%C3%8Ele- de- email@example.com,2.3522219000000177&s=&d=Mannheim,%firstname.lastname@example.com,8.466039499999965)

<comment><USER9> She tried to drive the car like a normal car, i.e., by not specially planning for charging.

And in that sense, the trip failed for the Tesla, because trying to drive it like a normal car in Europe was anxiety-inducing. Which was the whole point of the article...

<comment><USER9> Replying to the dead comment: the point of not using the Tesla-specific tools was that she wasn't trying to do a Tesla-specific road trip. She was trying to do a roadtrip in an EV, and just happened to choose a Tesla because it had most range of the EVs available to rent (many of the EVs available to thoses of us in California aren't yet available elsewhere).

<comment><USER18> That makes no sense. She clearly planned ahead in a way you wouldn't for a petrol car.

The "tool" everyone is mentioning is literally in the car dashboard. You have to go out of your way to _not_ use it by default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For anyone planning to take a road trip in an EV, there are really good tools that allow you to avoid almost all of the issues the author faced due to bad planning. The Tesla navigation system has one built in that takes into account supercharger closures, but there are also [https://evtripplanner.com](https://evtripplanner.com) and [https://abetterrouteplanner.com](https://abetterrouteplanner.com) , which are highly customizable and quite nice.

For this particular route, [https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=45a1f1bd-5697-448...](https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=45a1f1bd-5697-4482-bbfd-0fe7ecd71a88) finds a route with just under 2.5 hours total charging time, and 10 h15m driving time.

The one issue that might have been unavoidable was having a supercharger be closed unexpectedly while you are driving towards it, but I suspect that Tesla indicates impending closures on the display, and you can also call their roadside support line to clarify details about impending maintainence if you are worried.

</comment><comment><USER20> By "round Europe" they mean "Paris to Mannheim and back again". For this journey it would be much simpler and quicker to take the train: [https://www.thetrainline.com/en/train-times/paris-to- mannhei...](https://www.thetrainline.com/en/train-times/paris-to-mannheim-hbf)

(In general if you want to see a lot of Europe don't do it on the road, get an Inter-Rail pass! Much cheaper than a Tesla)

<comment><USER21> Car trips in Europe in general are less "fun" than the US due to the simple fact in Europe most businesses keep sensible hours. Unlike the the US you can't just drive and expect to find gas, food, or lodging at midnight. This may have changed in the past 10-20 years though. At least today you don't have to bother with showing your papers at every border crossing.

<comment><USER22> Sorry, folks. A business which is only open when I'm in the office and closed when I actually have some free time doesn't sound sensible at all.

<comment><USER23> I prefer that people go home and spend more time on their hobbies or families. I spent a few months in Austria and in a couple of weeks I was used to everything bar restaurants closing at 5.

<comment><USER17> I don't really understand this, why not have everything people want to go to be open after typical office jobs close? If you are only open for 8 hours, why not open later (11am or so) or have a couple hours that the shop is closed for family time (e.g. 3-5pm or something)?

Closing at 5 isn't convenient for anyone but the business owner, and even then it's not necessarily better than opening later.

<comment><USER23> It isn't just the business owner who benefits, the cashiers too. In South Africa most of the cashiers are women with children. I like the convenience of getting my bread at 8pm but would rather these cashiers where home with their children. Certain parts of the country are not so safe when traveling at night. These tend to be the areas cashiers can afford to live in. So its a double whammy for them.

Look it is a balance that needs to be struck. I appreciate the challenges in South Africa and different to the rest of the world. There is a price for everything, I question the price we pay as a society to have all these shops open late?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Bloomberg seems to have it in for Tesla so I take their reporting on this with a grain of salt.

They can easily choose to have a bad experience if they so desire by going to slow stations and avoiding superchargers. Or by using superchargers incorrectly such as by trying to fully top off at every charge, a typical newbie mistake, or choosing shared stations when non-shared ones are open (this guy was in a rental... possibly a newbie).

Also the supercharger network is continuing to be built out rapidly so anything they say here will be outdated in a matter of months if not weeks.

<comment><USER25> > supercharger network is continuing to be built out rapidly

I'm pretty sure this has been the case for a while now, years perhaps, and yet the author seemed to have problems none the less.

You say the reporting should be taken "with a grain of salt", but what did they do to make their lives harder than they could have been?

> Or by using superchargers incorrectly such as by trying to fully top off at > every charge

I have a petrol car that I fill up completely whenever I am at a petrol station, why should someone not do this for an electric car?

> or choosing shared stations when non-shared ones are open

What does this mean? I read the article but couldn't see anything that to me sounded like it matched this statement, but that's likely just my lack of experience.

I get that you might have more experience than me, or the author, but you've not really explained how this was the authors fault, and how the experience could have been made better.

If I buy a Tesla then try to drive from the North of England to Seville, am I going to have the same issues the author had? What knowledge do you posses that would allow me to do the journey more easily than they did?

<comment><USER8> >what did they do to make their lives harder than they could have been?

The big issue for me is not following the directions for charging in the manual and battery screen for the car. The navigation has an option to find Superchargers and yet the author used Google Maps to find chargers instead. This means that they got "destination chargers" instead of Superchargers. Additionally, the car tells you not to make quick charging stops and not to wait until the battery is low to charge as it handles all that automatically. The author could have made this trip in 2 stops that would have taken a total of 40 minutes of charging if they had just used the navigation built into the car. They went out of their way to make sure the "range anxiety" lasted for as long as possible.

<comment><USER26> Why would a charger off the highway in the middle of nowhere be a destination charger? Also, isn't this a mode that could be configured, with the charger supplying more juice if requested? Even if its a destination charger I wouldn't be happy to hang out for 2 hours if I could be done in 30 minutes if its more than a few minutes walk to my apartment/hotel.

<comment><USER8> Destination chargers are typically non-Tesla chargers that are available for use with an adapter that's included with the Tesla charger. A Supercharger can charge a vehicle to 100% of daily capacity in 20-25 minutes while a destination charger will typically take overnight to fully charge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Paris to Mannheim is only 3 hours by fast train! Why take the car? Or if money is an issue, it is 7 hours and US$ 25 by bus.

This does not make the authors point invalid. I am just pointing out the good public infrastructure. Even so I have a Tesla, I still prefer public transport if possible. It is an sooo much more productive use of time.

<comment><USER28> If getting from point A to B is the only goal, then I agree with you.

Some road trips are more about the journey than the destination though. If a sign tells me the worlds longest paperclip chain is just off the next exit, I'm probably going to take it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > While Tesla's website shows roughly 600 Supercharger stations in the U.S., > it has only around 400 in Europe, 65 of them in France (with a total of 220 > charging docks). That doesn't feel like much for a country roughly the size > of Texas with more than double its population.

The supercharger network in Europe is strongly weighted towards the west, there's a map [1].

Texas seems to have 39 superchargers, and the journalist didn't have to wait while others were charging.

So my guess is a 715 mile road trip in the USA would be similar — particularly on a leisure road trip, which is less likely to follow the main motorways.

[1] [https://www.tesla.com/en_EU/findus#/bounds/65,55,34,-11,d?se...](https://www.tesla.com/en_EU/findus#/bounds/65,55,34,-11,d?search=supercharger&name=Europe)

<comment><USER30> I commented here about my own experience taking a ~5,000 mile US road trip from Oregon to Texas in a Tesla Model 3 last summer: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18868422](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18868422)

tl;dr: I covered ~600 miles a day and it was a lovely trip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I know from my time back in the trench digging industry that a huge part of the charger lack issue is caused by the simple fact that ordinary superchargers gobble 150 kW electrical power a piece, which means that six of these things put a peak load of 1 MW to the net. The newer generations are said to be up 500 kW each... so you're looking at up to 3 MW or even 10x more, if you're an Autobahn rest place and aim for a load of electric trucks to be charged!

Your typical gas station, however, has a base load of tiny ~ 22 kW (per [1], divided by 8800h/year). The challenge is now that both the 10 kV electrical uplink _to_ the gas station itself and, especially in rural parts of the country, also the 50/110 kV distribution backbone has to be upgraded, and this is _not_ cheap.

This is the one big advantage of fossil (or synthetic) fuels: the energy density is incredibly high and the cost of shipping a fuel tanker truck is tiny compared to building out all that electricity network.

[1] [https://www.next-mobility.news/auch-verbrenner-fahren-mit- st...](https://www.next-mobility.news/auch-verbrenner-fahren-mit- strom-a-678284/index4.html)

<comment><USER32> Makes sense. But this sounds like plumbing vs. carrying water in buckets from the river. The plumbing is more expensive up front, but cheaper long term.

<comment><USER31> We are talking about investments to the tune of dozens of billions of dollars. Who is supposed to pay for this? Or, who is supposed to build it? Europe has a decent shortage of construction workers on one side and in city/government planning and approval on the other side.

In my opinion this is a task for the government if it wants to make sure people move away from fossil fuels, but the US president is holding the country hostage over a wall while the infrastructure is falling apart and Europe is locked up by populists and Brexit so no movement from there (and we Germans can't get HV transmission lines built across Germany either without lots of NIMBY protests and tons of wasted money).

My generation however will have to live with the consequences, and that sucks.

<comment><USER32> Agreed that it's a government job (though the utilities are quasi-governmental agencies if I'm not mistaken).

How many billions are we talking? If it's not too many, I'm sure the US government wastes that amount on much less important things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I did a 4-day 16 hour round trip drive just this past weekend through the Midwest into the South. Can't imagine having to stop any more often than I already did; in fact at the pace Teslas charge, I'm not sure the trip would have even been possible.

<comment><USER34> 16 hours.. total? or 112 hours total?

The former sounds amazingly brief, the latter, rather long.

<comment><USER33> Just curious, what is amazingly brief about driving two 8 hour (~500 mile) segments in four days? Even if I had the largest Tesla Battery, I would still have had to stop and do a full charge during each segment twice.

<comment><USER34> Sorry, now that you describe it, I realize the emphasis on the "round trip" part. Yes, doing a 4 day roundtrip with that many miles (and only 2 'travel' days) means a lot of driving for a brief stay. I was thinking more in terms of a relatively continuous trip where 4 hours a day for 4 days is not very much (for example).

My parents' house is about 500mi away from where I live, and I generally don't drive unless I'm staying for a week rather than just a few days, so this is a good point-- for a trip to visit someone, and return, a good % of your time is spent driving. As a typical "see the sights" type roadtrip, you might be doing 8 hours a day every day for an extended time, which is more what I was thinking.

(FWIW our 3 can easily get its rated 310 mi range so really you'd only need to stop once, assuming you can charge at your destination, but of course that assumes there's a supercharger relatively close to the 'middle' of your segment.. OTOH if you did stop twice they'd be quite brief stops, probably like 20 minutes).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I believe that it was the OP intention to do that trip mostly for the experience. It doesn't make sense to ask why not take a train or any other transport instead.

In any case, it just deepens my fear of electric cars. It surely looks expensive (almost as much as gas cars), there are very few superchargers in Europe (where I live there's only 3-4, and very badly placed) and the autonomy doesn't seem to be that great. Maybe I just have to wait for better autonomy and more recharge stations...

</comment><comment><USER36> > I decide to do a full charge as my hotel is still 145 miles away. It takes a > tedious 85 minutes, and I dine on a Whopper and fries.

It blows my mind that people think recharging their cars on the go can be the future of transportation. I understand that with good driver education and planning, the hassles of charging can be circumvented. I have a tremendous amount of respect for those that put in the effort: you are doing the pioneering work and boot starting a green revolution, I might join you soon.

That being said, for the average consumer electrics cannot represent a compelling alternative for an internal combustion car until battery swap technology is ubiquitous. The majority of people will simply not give up the convenience of fast refills, unless the cost of driving a petrol car rises significantly while the affordability and electrics increases dramatically. Even then, it will be seen by many as the low cost, inferior product.

A rechargeable car a significantly more inconvenient product for most consumers, so it has a lower value that has to be compensated somehow.

<comment><USER37> > A rechargeable car a significantly more inconvenient product for most > consumers

Actually, a rechargeable car is significantly more convenient than a gasoline car because you can charge it at home and/or work. You only ever have to wait for charging on long road trips.

If you take road trips over 250 miles on a monthly basis, or you can't charge at home or work, then by all means get a gasoline car. But I think that given people's driving patterns, the majority of people would spend less time overall waiting for charging than they would driving to the gas station and filling up. I certainly do.

<comment><USER38> I live in Seattle and am currently considering what car to buy next. It will likely be an ICE car because during the summer we regularly will drive 70-100 miles in one direction to a hike. There are not and will not be charging stations at the trailhead. Typically we eat breakfast on the road or before heading out, eat lunch on the hike & get back home for dinner. Stopping for over an hour on the way back would be a big change of pace.

This is also true for some of the ski resorts. There are a couple charging stations, but parking is already enough of a disaster at the ski resorts that I'd rather not deal with it.

We'll likely follow the crowd and get a ICE Subaru.

<comment><USER39> Get a PHEV. The Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid looks amazing, and the 2019 Prius has AWD. Save yourself some money until electric is ready.

<comment><USER40> The PHEV prius doesn't have AWD. It's a higher trim for a normal prius only. And the Crosstrek gets pretty poor mileage for a hybrid after the battery is empty, probably because it has "full" AWD. The Prius has a more limited form of AWD, though it is likely enough for most AWD vehicle buyers needs.

If you are interested in a PHEV AWD car (I am interested in PHEV, my wife is interested in AWD), other vehicles to check out are the Hyundai Outlander, the Mini E Countryman S, and a few more expensive BMWs and Volvos. Kia might have one? That's pretty much all of them. Crosstrek seems like the best to me, but has definite downsides and is a compliance car not widely available in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> [https://www.raileurope.com/train- tickets/journeys/article/pa...](https://www.raileurope.com/train- tickets/journeys/article/paris-mannheim)

 _" The average travel time between Paris and Mannheim is 4h49 minutes. The quickest route is 3h05 minutes. The first train leaving Paris is at 06:01, the last at 19:06. There is an average of 27 trains a day between Paris and Mannheim, leaving approximately every 40 minutes."_

</comment><comment><USER42> Why road trip with a borderline new tech anyway?

I'm all for EVs but this just feels like opting to play life on hard mode.

Roadtrips are about exploring the unknown, not the moment to try new transportation too

<comment><USER43> I've driven Norway to the UK and back three times in the last year with a side trip to Bordeaux. I drove all the way from Bordeaux to Belgium avoiding toll roads and still had no problems charging my 2015 S 70D. It's really not a problem in a Tesla.

It's a bloody nuisance for other EV drivers though because of the lack of a common payment method, a friend of a friend in France has a Hyundai Ioniq and has a wallet full of cards for the various chargers. It's getting better though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> A possibly interesting contrast: [https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/democratic- re...](https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/democratic-republic-of- congo-lubumbashi-to-kinshasa.50799/)

Upshot: what would normally (by Western standards) be an easy 17 hour drive takes the narrator something like 54 days on roads that ultimately destroy the vehicle just before completion.

<comment><USER45> Wow thanks for posting the link that was a great read!

Don't understand why the driver was so against paying bribes though. As one guy said:

> Before we were let go one office said "Ce n'est pas la Belgique ici, tu es > en Congo!" \- "This is not Belgium, you are in Congo". He hissed and gave us > a terrifying look

<comment><USER17> Yeah, bribes are just the cost of being a foreigner in many parts of the world, and they're often not too bad (unless you did something terrible).

Before visiting a poor country, figure out how much a bribe should be and consider it similar to a tip here. Policemen aren't paid very well, so it's kind of like tipping an underpaid waitress here in the US. Account for it as part of your overall expenses and you'll be fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Almost all of the issues and frustrations that Marie ran into were new and/or unique to electric vehicle (at least initially), as she pointed out.

\- EVs have shorter range: ICEs were similar in that fuel tank capacity hasn't changed much but engine design advancements improve fuel efficiency and in turn increase range.

\- Charging stations are far and few between: same with gas stations in the early days - urbanization creates more of them.

\- Different levels of charging station (1.8kwh home charging, 6.6kwh public charging and 24kw+ DC fast charging, colloquially Level 1, 2 and 3 charging). This is not the same as fuel grade. But it's obvious that just like a cellphone charger, higher output charger can fill the batteries faster.

\- Range meter is a guess-o-meter. This is exactly the same as your ICE's range meter. Driving style affects fuel efficiency. Heavy footers tends to empty their fuel tank quicker same with EV, they tend to run the battery out faster or range reduced faster as the faster you drive an EV and higher current the electric motor requires and the more battery voltage drops. A range at 30mph is much longer than at 80mph. I would point out that EV range is also weather dependent (temperature affects battery chemistry, rain/snow road condition affects traction and in turn affects range as well). Newer battery management systems has mitigations for temperature control etc so it's less a concern.

\- You have to be mindful about your road trip planning and charging station locations. This is the same for ICEs, but since gas stations are everywhere in urban areas so it is not a concern. It sure will improve for EVs as we build out charging infrastructure. U.S. regulators were able to negotiate a deal with VW for its diesel gate settlement so VW is contributing hughly in building out charging infrastructures.

\- DC Faster charger's reliability. As an early adopter of EV, I felt this pain first hand. The early 400V DC faster charger prioritize safety and hence it gets tripped up and disconnect the charging circuit a lot. But I am seeing less and less this happens in recent years, so I'd say it's only getting improved.

\- Charging etiquette. I suspect this is similar as ICE. When you refilling gas and getting some snacks and run for a bathroom break, do you park your car right in front of the gas pump even though it's fully refueled? You probably shouldn't right? Same with using DC faster chargers. Don't squat the charging spot if your car is fully charged and or above 80% of charge (above 80% charge it automatically switch to a slower charging rate), let the people inline to use the charger.

<comment><USER47> > \- Range meter is a guess-o-meter. This is exactly the same as your ICE's > range meter. Driving style affects fuel efficiency. Heavy footers tends to > empty their fuel tank quicker same with EV, they tend to run the battery out > faster or range reduced faster as the faster you drive an EV and higher > current the electric motor requires and the more battery voltage drops. A > range at 30mph is much longer than at 80mph. I would point out that EV range > is also weather dependent (temperature affects battery chemistry, rain/snow > road condition affects traction and in turn affects range as well). Newer > battery management systems has mitigations for temperature control etc so > it's less a concern.

The annoying thing here is that the range planners I've been using (Teslas and abtterrangeplanner) cut the charger distances really close on some common routes I've checked - like reaching the charger at < 15% charge. Which, at least for me, seems like a heck of a close call for a situation where road traffic conditions, temperature and possible detours can quickly burn away that remaining battery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I though it was already clear that road tripping around anywhere is not the reason you buy an electric car. The infrastructure just isn't there yet (though that sounds like a good pork project).

On the other hand...he's literally the only person in the world who could post this and I'd take it seriously...

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1083095876392964096?ref_...](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1083095876392964096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1083095876392964096&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftribune.com.pk%2Fstory%2F1885358%2F8-elon- musk-serious-flying-cars%2F) [https://tribune.com.pk/story/1885358/8-elon- musk-serious-fly...](https://tribune.com.pk/story/1885358/8-elon-musk-serious- flying-cars/)

Does anyone have context on this?

</comment><comment><USER49> One thing about roadtrips - we like to take scenic routes. On scenic routes there are very few gas stations, let alone electric charging points. Even with a gas powered car we still have to plan our fuel-ups.

Another thing is that an hour and a half to charge the car is very long time to cut out of your day when on vacation. If you're with kids, you have to find stuff to do. Every day, since you do drive the scenic route which is much more heavy on battery than highways are.

Eating a meal while charging of course is a thing, yet we usually try to cut that time to minimum compensating with late dinner. Also, eating options near charging stations almost never hit home...

I suppose that if technology won't catch up, electric must change the way people travel. Or it will still be relevant for A-to-B trips or daily commuters only.

</comment><comment><USER30> Last summer I took a road trip from Oregon to Texas and back in a Tesla Model 3. I covered about 600 miles a day over the course of 8 days, for a total of nearly 5,000 miles. I never had a problem finding a supercharger along my route, never had to wait to charge, and rarely had to spend more than 30 minutes charging before continuing.

I stuck to major highways and interstates for most of the route, though there were a few long legs in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas that were on minor highways off the beaten trail.

It was a really fun trip and I'm dying to take more long road trips in the car. My experience definitely wasn't anything like the one the author of this article had.

</comment><comment><USER50> It's really hard to understand this article due to its use of miles.

</comment><comment><USER51> Aka we need better ways of storing energy

<comment><USER52> Or don't use a Tesla for something it's not really designed for? Cars can be rented pretty cheaply. 99% of the driving I do is within a single charge of say 300 miles. I might have to rent once a year for longer trips.

My sister has an old generation Nissan Leaf with sub-100 mile range. It works fine for her use case and when she makes a long trip she uses her partners car or rents one.

No different to how I'd rent a van if I was trying to move a sofa.

<comment><USER53> >No different to how I'd rent a van if I was trying to move a sofa.

That's true. But, for a lot of people, long weekend roadtrips are a lot more common than moving sofas. There's quite a bit of friction associated with driving to a rental place on a Friday, parking your car someplace, driving the rental home, packing it up, and then doing the process in reverse during the rental place's business hours.

<comment><USER54> If you are doing a lot of long weekend roadtrips, you will likely want to own a ICE vehicle with the current state of battery tech. Not a big deal. To each their own. But for many people, especially households with two cars, one of those that fills up at home and has a range of 200mi, will be something that saves them time and money. People and society would probably be better off not attaching their identity and group affiliation to the type of car they use. Keep your identity small[1].

[1][http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html)

<comment><USER53> For a good many years when I was still commuting and otherwise driving locally more than I do now, I had a small 36mpg Honda 2-seater as well as an SUV for weekends and hauling stuff. I actually still have the Honda but it's very old and I'll probably get rid of it because I don't use it much. If a person or family has 2 cars, it makes a lot of sense for at least one of them to be something small and economical and (at least in the near future) EV--assuming home charging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm rather surprised so many comments here fundamentally misunderstand EVs and think that this bloomberg story is representative of long distance trips with EVs. It's not and no one should consider it as such. She needlessly charged to 100% when she didn't have to and did zero research on the car she was using. The article is a farce.

</comment><comment><USER56> Good. Road tripping should be a thing of the past anyway, no matter what you use.

</comment><comment><USER57> ICE engines have jerrycans, for long haul or emergency use, electric vehicles have nothing.

</comment><comment><USER58> Are Teslas fun to drive? I know they're fast but is the suspension etc. as refined as (lets say) an M3

</comment><comment><USER59> If he wanted to go that far, he should've taken a train. I realize that the point of this was to test it out but he is flat-out ignoring that extremely few people here do trips over 200km over once a year, so there's no demand for infrastructure to support that.

<comment><USER60> Everyone is not exaclty like you. Where I live in europe, many people around me do more than 200km ocassionally or often. And when I go on a roadtrip, I notice plenty of cars with registration numbers not from particular country.

<comment><USER61> > Everyone is not exaclty like you.

> extremely few

> many people around me

Studies suggest that "extremely few" and "many people around me" is about 10% of car trips. (At least in the U.S., typically more geographically sprawled than much of europe).

[https://www.fastcompany.com/3062902/electric-vehicles- could-...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3062902/electric-vehicles-could-work- for-almost-90-of-car-trips-today)

So, yes, maybe not everybody can have an electric car and may need to rent a better suited car some % of the time; Maybe that's a partner, a neighbor, a car club. On the bright side, renting a van, truck, land rover for longer trips also reduces the wear on your batteries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Sounds fun to me if you don't mind planning a few off the beaten track style detours. Shouldn't be too hard, plenty of tools available for finding and navigating chargers.

A few points about range anxiety:

\- To the best of my knowledge, EVs being towed away because they ran out of battery probably happens once in a while but seems to be easy enough to avoid for most drivers that it doesn't seem to be thing. Even the author of this article was fine in the end (and not for a lack of trying).

-You can charge some EVs simply by towing them (regenerative braking). So, not the end of the world if the "worst" actually happens. I imagine charging from a second EV might also be an option with the right equipment; I imagine that will become a common way to deal with idiot drivers getting stranded.

\- If you drive 300 km and don't take a break, you are probably getting dangerously tired. Good excuse to plug in and take a break.

\- Average yearly mileage in Germany is less than 14K km. That suggests a lot of short journeys and maybe a handful of big ones (if any) for most cars.

\- If like many business drivers in Germany you regularly travel the Autobahn at 200 km/hour between big cities that can be as much as 400-500 km apart in Germany, you probably are burning a lot of fuel. You could save a small fortune by going electric! Chances are most such journeys have plenty of charging points along your way.

\- For most people this is not a thing. Renting cars is a lot cheaper than owning vehicles that you don't need most of the time. You can have a simple EV for day to day commutes and just rent something with longer range when you need to make that yearly 1500 km journey to southern Europe for your vacation. The savings in vehicle and fuel cost should allow you to travel in style.

</comment><comment><USER63> This is exactly how I would have imagined a trip would go. $85 billion market cap for a car that can't travel to most areas of the globe at all or with severe inconvenience? Give me a break.

Electric cars have been around for 100 years, and they've been consistently inferior. We've perfected the car with the internal combustion engine. Empower automobile engineers to make marginal improvements, but otherwise: can we please spend precious capital elsewhere? Think of all the cures or improvements to human life this money could have gone towards, rather than this stupid electric car will-o'-the-wisp. Build some nuclear power plants! Go to Mars! (In fairness, Elon's trying the latter, as long as Tesla doesn't become a financial albatross around his neck.)

Why must the history of humanity always be the story of one step forward and two steps backward?

<comment><USER64> _> $85 billion market cap for a car that can't travel to most areas of the globe at all or with severe inconvenience?_

Pure electric cars have only been widely available for a few years, so there isn't a lot of infrastructure yet. The market cap prices in risk-adjusted growth, so you have to consider what the world will look like 10-20 years from now. Do you think it'll still be the case that electric cars won't travel to most areas of the globe without severe inconvenience?

 _> Build some nuclear power plants! Go to Mars!_

Firstly, we can do both. There is enormous amount of capital in the world, and not enough actionable good ideas. Secondly, dictating capital allocation top down is tyrannical. Thirdly and most importantly, there have been human societies that have tried to avoid various will-o'-the-wisp projects and allocate capital only to smart undertakings. Historically, they haven't fared very well.</comment></comment>


A worldwide survey of neonicotinoids in honey - <AUTHOR> http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6359/109 <comment><USER2> The punchline from the abstract:

 _Our results confirm the exposure of bees to neonicotinoids in their food throughout the world. The coexistence of neonicotinoids and other pesticides may increase harm to pollinators. However, the concentrations detected are below the maximum residue level authorized for human consumption._

<comment><USER3> > However, the concentrations detected are below the maximum residue level > authorized for human consumption.

For now... if the bees survive with higher and higher levels. What were the levels at 5 years ago?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Science also has succinct writeup and video on the research [http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/pesticides-found- hone...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/pesticides-found-honey-around- world)</comment>


Show HN: Simple/fun site made specifically for Super Bowl - <AUTHOR> http://aretheychamps.com

<comment><USER2> Sorry if I sound overly negative, but: Am I missing something, or does this pretty much only appeal to the HN crowd who can think "well it doesn't interest me, but nice hacking!" and not to anyone who actually cares about the NFL?

<comment><USER3> You're not missing anything!

It's just a simple little page, in the vein of isitraining.in and such sites. We started as the Super Bowl started, and worked while watching. That's all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Quick tip: increase the line-height on the 2nd page header (e.g. "Are the steelers the Super Bowl Champs?")

On latest Chrome on OS X, the text looks too cramped.

[http://webdesign.about.com/od/examples/l/bl_css_line_spacing...](http://webdesign.about.com/od/examples/l/bl_css_line_spacing_examples.htm)

<comment><USER3> Thanks so much for the tip! I think we fixed it now...

This is why Hacker News is so cool.

<comment><USER4> no prob, good luck! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't the NFL pretty tightly regulate the use of the logos?

<comment><USER3> You might be right. Although I'd kinda love a cease-and-desist from the NFL. Frame it up or something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> nice well done!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Don't forget @ajaymehta helped as well!</comment></comment>


Forever on the Chain - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@julio_santos/forever-on-the-chain-c755838dfc79 <comment><AUTHOR> OP here, happy to answer any questions.</comment>


McDonald's Has a Chef? - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1963755-1,00.html <comment><USER2> The thing that stands out here is the number of people who have to be on board before a product makes it to market, and how they focus group everything. Very Microsoft-like. Is there a fast-food equivalent to Apple?

It also reminds me of this article I saw the other day (horribly alarmist title aside): [http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/45380/4-shocking- sec...](http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/45380/4-shocking-secrets- about-fast-food/)

<comment><USER3> _Is there a fast-food equivalent to Apple?_

This is going to sound ridiculously clichéd, but could probably make a case for Starbucks. A lot their success came from having and marketing a consistent, stylized aesthetic, they got a lot of flack for being expensive, they unified and created a "standard" of sorts in a market that was fragmented and not seen as interesting (i.e., coffee shops vs. MP3 players and online music stores), their aesthetic choices tend to get adopted by competitors...

<comment><USER4> The essential ingredient to Apple isn't the consistent, stylized aesthetic, or the expense, or any of that. The essential ingredient is a charismatic dictator who says "this is what we're doing" and makes the company focus on it. It's usually a very _bad_ business model, because dictatorship almost never works, but it does depend on the dictator.

And there's also no good way of choosing a dictator--someone with Jobs' force of will either makes himself the dictator, or you have to use some sort of collaborative process. No one at Apple sat down and said "let's put Steve in charge again", Steve heard that they were shopping for an operating system, called them up, and spent the next year or two taking over the company.

And if someone makes himself your dictator, he's not always very good at it. Jobs himself almost ran two companies into the ground before his business sense was properly calibrated. You don't just have to have a dictator, you have to have a dictator who knows what to do.

<comment><USER5> Most of us agree that enlightened absolutism is the best form of government. However, so far nobody solved the problem of ensuring a steady supply of good kings.

By the way - its not just apple. Any company is essentially a dictatorship. But most of dictators are scared or clueless so they rely on layers of committees upon layers of committees to do their work.

What I took from the article is that getting a product to market at McDonalds is hard - because of logistics behind getting all the ingredients to the restaurants in time AND getting through all the layers of people who don't want to take (or cant) responsibility.

Do I see an end for the McDonalds?

<comment><USER4> "By the way - its not just apple. Any company is essentially a dictatorship. But most of dictators are scared or clueless so they rely on layers of committees upon layers of committees to do their work."

That's something else--I don't know the best word for it, but something like aristocracy or something. In fact, a lot of "corporate politics" boil down to, essentially, squabbling lords and nobles playing for power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd love to read some detailed reports on how operations research impacts food selection and the workflow of the cooks at mcdonalds. Does anyone know if anything about this has been released?

</comment><comment><USER7> The Mac Wrap is the worst thing I have ever tasted at any McDonalds, by a huge margin. Just...weird.

That said, I am glad they are innovating -- other things introduced in the past decade or so are quite good (and the Big & Tasty is now just $1.79 where I live -- perhaps half the price of what it used to be.)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm a burger king fan and always will be. I went to Burger King in Barcelona on New Years Eve, and I scarified my facebook friends for a whopper, but not realizing that the promotion was only for the States. Great memories

</comment><comment><USER9> They've learned a few things since the Arch Deluxe fiasco.</comment>


Ask HN: Is instagram.com broken or is it just me? - <AUTHOR> I see this: (index):215 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'call' of undefined
    at t ((index):215)
    at Object.<anonymous> (f05bbe87f13a.js:1)
    at t ((index):215)
    at Object.880 (ff3a5fc73987.js:1)
    at t ((index):215)
    at Object.<anonymous> (ff3a5fc73987.js:1)
    at Object.911 (ff3a5fc73987.js:1)
    at t ((index):215)
    at Object.910 (ff3a5fc73987.js:1)
    at t ((index):215) <comment><USER2> Just checked from my computer and Instagram loaded without error for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah it finally started working for me. But I was definitely being served a broken build.</comment></comment>


The truth about lying: who does it, and why - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/08/truth-about-lying

<comment><USER2> I lie all the time to people who do their best to stop me from telling the truth. When people relentlessly and shamelessly manipulate situations to deter me from telling them something, and I can afford to wait, I'll wait for an opening. It's like dealing with a military adversary who interprets truth as aggression. You don't strike when they're posturing right off your coast. You wait until their navy is in port and their planes are on the ground, and you hope they won't go to the trouble of punishing you, or that they calm down before they manage to muster a retaliatory strike. I don't feel guilty about lying under such circumstances. They're demanding to be lied to, and I'm telling them the truth against their will. Whether I'm doing them a favor by ultimately telling the truth or just telling the truth for my own selfish reasons, I figure they share responsibility for the lies I tell in the meantime.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm... the real circumstances of social experiments are tough to evaluate. I'd have to be there to believe it.

I'm skeptical... people might just have thought: hey cool, a social experiment, let's play with the situation and enjoy myself. In real life telling somebody, that might know your friends or classmates, you play in a popular band will not do good for your reputation. I don't think people outright lie... they omit, expand, exaggerate, twist, etc., but not outright lie.

There's probably a socially accepted ratio of how much you're allowed to bend it, with 1.0 being totally honest and 0.0 outright lying. I'd say you can get away with 0.5 often (try at your own risk). Bell curve?</comment>


A new sort of hedge fund relies on crowd-sourcing - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21721946-amateur-coders-write-algorithms-compete-funds-new-sort-hedge-fund <comment><USER2> Here's my "Tom Clancy movie plot" evil fund. Someone starts a fund that's actually based on figuring out the portfolios of Senators, moderately high net worth congresspersons and other Washington insiders. However, instead of duplicating the entire portfolios of the whole populace, you first filter for IQ, an age range where people are starting to be very well connected but still making their fortunes, and develop another filter based on a quantitative proxy for riskiness of each investment.

This is what the fund will really be based on, though there will be a fig leaf fictional method advertised. The purpose of this is to piggyback on the (technically-not) insider trading such people will manage to do while still staying within the letter of the law. (Somehow, the collective portfolios of US representatives manage to greatly outperform the stock market indexes.)

<comment><USER3> This (insider trading by representatives) was common practice till the STOCK act:

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

Check out the amendment in the last paragraph for more ideas for your Tom Clancy movie.

<comment><USER4> it still is common practice.

[http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/14/congress-stock- trad...](http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/14/congress-stock-trading- conflict-of-interest-rules-238033)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We've been seeing these quantopian fund stores for years now.

Where are the numbers? I mean at some point you have to produce right?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12171843#12173142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12171843#12173142)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12950276#12952666](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12950276#12952666)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335272#12336086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335272#12336086)

THe biggest issue I see for a quantopian fund is the "skin in the game" rule. All of the successful fund managers I know have a very unhealthy portion of their net worth in their own funds.

It's not clear to me that the quantopian algo designers will be able to, or be forced to, put their own money into their strategies. I find "skin in the game" to be one of the most promising alpha signals that still persists to date.

<comment><USER6> This is an interesting comment as we have no way of validating how much money designers are putting into their own algorithms.

I started building algorithms on Quantopian 2.5 years ago, using it as a way to teach myself how to code because I come from a finance background and had no coding experience. I now have a portfolio of algorithms that consistently produce alpha (so far). My favorite algorithm does valuations and then buys and holds for long periods of time. I don't actually invest any money into this algorithm but rather use it as a prescreener for my own personal investments. I have a significant amount of 'skin in the game' because of the amount of time I have invested in developing my algorithms in addition to half of my (very little) net worth being allocated based on the suggestions of my algorithm.

I wouldn't be surprised if other designers were in the same boat. This is purely anecdotal but I hope it helps.

<comment><USER7> Do you know if there is something similar which can run against stocks traded on the Japanese markets? I would love to write a pre-screener for myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Uh, isn't "the market" just the ultimate crowd-sourced fund?

<comment><USER9> The market is like a giant voting machine but not really a fund, since nobody is managing it.

<comment><USER10> Index funds exist since the seventies.

<comment><USER9> Index funds actually still have a manager, whose only job is to rebalance periodically and accurately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'll repeat what I've said before about these platforms - I don't see why any institutional money would ever flow to them. Most startup funds require at least 5 years of audited history before any capital allocator will touch them. They might get some small quick money from fund-of-funds, but I think they'll be hard-pressed to keep it. Given the relative short history on these platforms and the likely churn in algos, I can't see anyone putting serious money into them.

One of the other problems I see with these platforms is that there is nothing that stops me, as far as I can tell, from pulling my algo from that platform once it is successful. Now there are lots of reasons why I could see people not doing that (running your own fund is hard, raising capital is difficult), but I don't see why anyone that is successful wouldn't immediately exit the platform in order to maximize their return.

<comment><USER12> For numer.ai you can't leave. The data you get is private and encrypted. So even if you come up with a great algo, you depend on them to do anything with it.

<comment><USER13> Unless some other fund buys the same expensive data?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The problem with Quantopian, many current robo-advisors (including some with large valuations) and other market-related fintechs is that by and large they don't seem to have anyone who has had real success actually trading automated quantitative strategies at a serious hedge fund or tier-1 proprietary trading group on their founding teams. I've seen successful VCs, well-known academics, market gurus, people with a background in some aspect of running a mutual fund and all manner of other people who seem like they should be good, but nobody with an actual track record. I've seen people who worked on technology at hedge funds but the technology group at a hedge fund builds what amounts to plumbing like clearing, reporting etc, not the actual trading technology, certainly nothing that can actually impact PNL.

Jonathan Larkin at Quantopian comes closest to what is needed and since he joined Quantopian has certainly had good success, but even his experience was more along the lines of recruiting and risk-managing portfolio managers, not actually running a large book. He certainly helps Quantopian but Quantopian is coming from a place where when it was founded, I personally had to explain what selection bias meant to John Fawcett and despite Jonathan Larkin being there, they still seem to be making some pretty basic mistakes in how the platform is setup.

Spending a few years working on a tier-1 automated trading desk is absolutely essential because, what is deployed at those firms (and what you are competing with) is years if not decades ahead of academia and the rest of the industry and you learn more in a week of working on a successful trading desk (which only happens if you demonstrate a lot of not just academic aptitude), with people sharing knowledge available nowhere else than in a decade in academia or anywhere else, even other groups at the same firm, potentially sitting 10 feet away from the trading group. I'm not suggesting people steal IP or anything like that but you do have to have sone sense of what the state-of- the-art actually is if you are going to claim to have developed something state of the art.

I suspect it's going to end up like the search space, where the space will be taken over by the second generation of firms that nobody has heard of who decide to do things differently from how investment management is currently run offline taking advantage of their knowledge of how mutual funds including index funds are picked off by sophisticated traders.

Interestingly, Igor Tulchinsky at Worldquant and his team who are a tier-1 trading shop have basically been running a very successful version of what Quantopian hopes to become without a lot of hoopla or publicity for years, decades if you include the time they were doing this as an independent team at Millenium.

<comment><USER15> > how investment management is currently run offline taking advantage of their > knowledge of how mutual funds including index funds are picked off by > sophisticated traders.

This is news to me, I was not aware that most index funds are being front-run to such a large degree. I understand it was possible with the Russell 2000 index at some point. But e.g. the Vanguard Total Market fund (CRSP index) has almost identical performance to the Fidelity Total Market index fund (Dow Jones Total Market). And both funds replicate the performance of e.g. the Ibbotson book.

How is it possible that this is occurring if the index funds are being picked off? Or do you mean style / sector index funds, not broad market?

<comment><USER14> I don't mean to be snarky but I fail to understand why you believe that the fact that the Vanguard Total Market Fund has almost identical performance to the Fidelity Total Market fund and that both funds replicate the performance of e.g. the Ibbotson book is an argument either for or against my statement that sophisticated traders are able to make lots of money due to the actions of index funds. I don't mean to be snarky and I would really like to give you a meaningful answer but I'm not sure how to proceed and I'd like to understand why you believe the two have anything to do with each other so I can give you a higher quality reply.

<comment><USER15> they follow different indices and have similar returns. Please explain how this is possible while still underperforming what they 'should' be returning. Are both indices being front-run? But if they reconstitute at different times how is this possible.

And yes, you do sound snarky.

<comment><USER14> > they follow different indices and have similar returns. > Please explain how > this is possible while still > underperforming what they 'should' be > returning.

They are both equity indices and equities are highly correlated to each other. The first principal component of global equity returns explains over 50% of the variance.

> Are both indices being front-run?

Yes! If a stock is getting added (or dropped) from an index, this is typically announced (depending on the index) between 3 days and a month before the date on which the change to the index is made. The index itself is calculated assuming you bought (or sold) precisely at the close on the day of the reconstitution. Index fund managers are incentivized to match the index. They actually do worse personally if they modestly outperform the index and potentially get fired if they underperform. So every index fund manager wants to buy (or sell) the stock entering (or leaving) the index at precisely the same time on the same day. This means you could potentially have as much as a few months trading volume wanting to transact on the same side at precisely the same time. Smart traders take advantage of this by a) Buying (selling short for deletes) the stock over time before the index is reconstituted. b) Selling what they bought and short selling more (or buying) stock to the index funds at the close and c) Covering their shorts (or selling the excess stock bought) over the next few weeks. The fund managers don't care because even though a typical proprietary trading desk makes tons of money doing this, as far as their clients are concerned, they are matching the index. You could move a stock 50% in the rebalance but you wouldn't notice if you were comparing a fund's returns relative to the index.

This is fairly obvious if you simply take a look at price charts of stocks entering and leaving indices around index reconstitutions. Academic studies (use google scholar for a few dozen references) estimate that the typical index addition or deletion to the S&P 500 index moves between 2-4% between announcement and reconstitution. This is an underestimate of what actually happens because adds/deletes are predictable and stocks start moving long before the announcements are made. S&P 500 stocks are the most liquid stocks on the planet and the effect is much larger for other indices. The Russell indices are not much more or less gameable than other indices per add or delete but the effects are concentrated since all Russell Index rebalances happen on a single day (fourth Friday in June) which creates massive jumps in PNL for proprietary trading desks right around that time.

It's also fairly obvious if you look at the data carefully that in recent years with the increasing popularity of index funds, the indices are understating the potential returns available in the stock market. The market has done "better" than the oft-quoted returns on the indices would have you believe.

> But if they reconstitute at different times how is this > possible.

Why would the timing of the reconstitution have anything to do with why this is possible or not?

<comment><USER15> I explicitly avoided mentioning the S&P500. Why did you bring it up? It makes your point nicely but I'm not talking about the S&P500 or the R2k as examples where front running of any significance is happening. The index additions/deletions in the Total Market indices happen at the margins: micro- cap stocks (and IPOs). Hard to argue much happens of any effect with micro-cap stocks.

I don't necessarily disagree with you on the S&P500 or R2k, but it's much harder to make the same argument for total market indices.

Please justify how you are saying the market returns understate potential market returns. If it is not an index you are using, what is it?

> Why would the timing of the reconstitution have anything to do with why this > is possible or not?

Because they have similar returns and add/remove stocks at different times. If Vanguard's total market fund adds a stock after Fidelity's, then any jump ("front-running") in share price due to Vanguard's purchases would be captured in a higher return for Fidelity since it already owned the shares.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Numerai is also doing this: [https://numer.ai/](https://numer.ai/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I think I found a new interview question: write an algorithm that outperformed the market for the past ten years...you have 35 minutes...

<comment><USER18> That's easy and doesn't take 35 minutes. Here's the algorithm:

If year < 2009: short stocks

else: buy stocks

Add some leverage to this and you made a lot of money. Doesn't mean it'll work in the future, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> One of Quantopian's studies shows that backtesting poorly predicts live trading results: [https://blog.quantopian.com/using-machine-learning-to- predic...](https://blog.quantopian.com/using-machine-learning-to-predict-out- of-sample-performance-of-trading-algorithms/). From the forums, it looks like 90% of the effort is devoted to getting a good backtest, a yardstick which might not have any bearing on reality. How do real quant traders deal with this discrepancy?

<comment><USER20> Real firms use tick data to backtest, not the 1 minute bars that Quantopian uses, and spend a lot of time simulating network characteristics such as data and order latency. They also use machine learning, which isn't possible on Quantopian, to build models, which requires downloading lots of data (and not just equities). No serious quant will ever use such a tool. You might as well go to the casino.

<comment><USER20> Edit: tick data is usually collected over time, because data sources have different characteristics, and you should be testing over the same realtime data that you'll be using to trade live. You need to know the bid/ask prices and volumes, in order to know where to place limit orders. Otherwise you are just paying commissions and spreads to brokers and market makers.</comment></comment></comment>


How an indie game dev reality show collapsed on its first day of filming (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.polygon.com/2014/3/31/5568362/game-jam-reality-show-maker-studios

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is HN discussion of a different link about the same topic from when this happened: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7503842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7503842)</comment>


Ask HN: Tattoos - <AUTHOR> I am puzzled why so many people have tattoos. It's an interesting phenomenon to me. I am surrounded by people with tattoos and really do not understand the appeal. To me tattoos are what farmers use to keep track of their cows so that if they get lost, farmers can claim them. The nose piercing thing also perplexes me. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but like Snapchat, I don't get it.
I wanted to see the percentage of tattooed people by country on a map, but don't think that data exists so I thought Instagram hashtags might be a good proxy.
Here's the map I made: http://keyhole.co/realtime/nGDKOQ/tattoo <comment><USER2> Very nice, you should change the title to "Tattoos by Countries Map".

Re tattoos, I don't know why so many people are doing this too. Sometimes I think it must be a huge misunderstanding: I observe tattooed people longer and more intense because every time I think 'why'. Why did they do this. Often the tattoos are ugly, faded, huge and then I stare even more and longer. And I guess that tattooed people misunderstand my staring and think I am attracted to them and affection must be the reason I watch them. Since many will watch them they must think, wow my tattoo makes people look at me, I need more tattoos.

On the other side they make people look at them and maybe that better than nothing or no attraction and maybe this initial slight disgust could turn into demands the longer you watch because you discover other beauties of the person.

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems addictive because people who have one often get more. I guess it's about making a statement mostly...

<comment><USER3> Not for me, unless you count making statements to myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why do people do anything they do?

The answer to "why" will be as diverse as the people that have them anyway--I have mine because I like them and they're meaningful to me.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's just a marking on your body. It just looks cool if you do it right. That's it. There's no deep evolutionary reason you seem to be looking for. Same with Snapchat. It's fun and effortless. That's why people do it, to send silly pictures for silly reasons and to have silly, harmless, fun.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm the "I don't get it" group as well. I'm also am surrounded by friends and peers with tattoos but I have no desires to get one.</comment>


Ask HN: What VPN Services do you use/recommend? - <AUTHOR>

So many dodgy reviews out there, thought I ask you guys for some current recommendations. <comment><USER2> Primary:

\- DIY VPN servers using cheap virtual servers found on lowendbox.com and lowendtalk.com. I use both PPTP (no need for specific client software) and OpenVPN (works anywhere you have TCP, even if only a single port is open). It's not the easiest way in terms of initial setup but (i) I can share the services I set up with friends, (ii) I can rent servers from providers that have low latency and high throughput from my ISP (China Unicom in Beijing), (iii) the low number of users on each server means low chance of being blocked by the GFW.

Backup (just in case): [http://vpn.sh/](http://vpn.sh/) (cheap)

</comment><comment><USER3> Steve Gibson of the _Security Now!_ podcast recommends ProXpn. They do sponsor the show, but Steve has vetted them, and in the absence of vetting services myself I'd go with his recommendation.

</comment><comment><USER4> You can roll your own on amazon.

You can't stream hulu though from amazon ip addresses, I believe, based on my experience.

</comment><comment><USER5> A few months ago I read an article where the author interviewed a hacker with a good reputation (sry, forgot the name) and where they talked about a bunch of VPN providers.

The hacker mentioned [https://www.ipredator.se/](https://www.ipredator.se/) as a very good VPN service for various reasons. I'm using it since then and they accept Bitcoin as payment.

<comment><USER6> Maybe the hacker recommended them because they are actually insecure and now he has access to all your data because you blindly followed his suggestion. :O

Or maybe you are actually the hacker and getting more people to subscribe.

<comment><USER5> He asked for recommendations because of many biased reviews. I told him what I use and why. That's it.

Here is the article I mentioned: [http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=ht...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zeit.de%2Fdigital%2Fdatenschutz%2F2013-01%2Fserie- mein-digitaler-schutzschild-vpn-ipredator)

<comment><USER6> I know, just playing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> private internet access: [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/)

Using it for past 2 years.</comment>


What Is Functional Programming? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jenkster.com/2015/12/what-is-functional-programming.html <comment><USER2> Wednesday's original posting of this has 7+ comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10811717](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10811717)</comment>