The End of the Bonus Culture Is Coming to Wall Street? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-13/traders-unlearn-bonus-culture-as-machines-invade-wall-street <comment><USER2> No the end of bonus culture is never coming to Wall Street. It sounds nice in theory and makes for a good headline but it never works in real-life, particularly for performance oriented jobs like fundraising, sales, etc.

The reason is that when you work in environment that's all about getting more funds, selling more products it's not a rewarding job like marketing or software development.

The only rewarding part is making money, scoring deals and beating your other colleagues, competitors. Other than that, most people hate these jobs. And even to manage sales teams isn't easy. High-turnover rates, bunch of high- testosterone jerks ...

I'm talking about finance here. Yes software sales or gym membership sales you can be a nice consultative sales person who's simply there to maintain the status quo and benefit from a good product that sells itself.

Turn these jobs into regular consultative sales and you're going belly up. That's because in wall street you don't simply have a game-changing product like some Silicon Valley startup - that's solving real need.

There's no difference in what you offer other than how you can win clients on your side. And most of these clients don't want to deal with average sales dude ... because they're simply not one of them.

The top traders at the floor in one of my past jobs didn't even sell, they talked about cars, yachting, girls and played golf and poker with clients.

And yes, everyone gets bonuses in investment banks, but it's really the commissions they earn and dealmakers who drive the performance.

<comment><USER3> An interesting speculative-fiction writing prompt: performance-based compensation gets declared illegal. All salespeople instantly change careers, because, without performance-based compensation, their jobs are awful and they hate them. Every company in every market suddenly has to get by without the ability to actively get their products into people's hands.

What happens next?

<comment><USER4> The world is vastly improved as all search results are now 'organic', and people find the products they need without being bombarded with advertising and cheap behavioral economic manipulations to encourage them to purchase products and services they don't need.

<comment><USER3> I think you're thinking of marketers/advertisers, who are not, in fact, compensated based on performance.

<comment><USER5> That's not true. Marketers these days increasingly have revenue targets

<comment><USER3> Target-based compensation (i.e. "getting a bonus if the project succeeds") and performance-based compensation (i.e. "working on commission") are different things. One directly rewards effort; the other (mostly) rewards office- politicking, by e.g. finding your way onto projects on the cusp of success.

<comment><USER5> No. Lots of marketing is directly tied to revenue generated and get compensated on their direct ability to generate pipeline. It's directly tied to performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I was interviewing for roles at tech companies while working on Wall St., I remember having conversations with recruiters where I would tell them my salary and my bonus (which was usually 30-40% of my overall comp), and they would say something like, "We don't give out 30% bonuses here. Is that okay?" And I would say, "If you can match the overall comp, then yes, that's terrific."

The point being, bonuses are just a way for finance companies to flex your salary down when the firm has a bad quarter, or you're unvalued or working on an unvalued project. From that standpoint, I don't see bonuses going away any time soon, but if they do then all the better for the employees.

<comment><USER7> In this situation, do you think getting "flexed down" by your company is overall better or worse than companies just eliminating your position entirely?

Edit: Did someone read some snark in my question? It was an honest question.

<comment><USER8> It's the difference between a screw that can be tuned to performance, or a nail that is hammered in place permanently. bonuses differ from raises in that their isn't an element of entitlement or a long term commitment from the organization.

It's not about being squeamish about eliminating a position, companies have no concerns with that.

<comment> jagged-chisel > It's not about being squeamish about eliminating a position...

If that's the case, wouldn't it make sense to offer a 'stable' higher salary to an employee, and then sack them when it's financially beneficial to the company? I think the company does indeed have a concern with that - it becomes known that a particular company just thins the ranks every 18mos, and they'll have fewer folks lining up to take jobs.

On the other hand, even if the salary is lower, an employee can be more confident in keeping at least a modicum of income in lean times, and can also 'compete with colleagues' when bonuses are available. The perception (of the employer to the employee) is valuable to some extent.

<comment><USER9> > sack them when it's financially beneficial to the company?

Depends on how onerous a task it is to rehire when things pick up again ... I presume that's part of the reason foe generous separation packages when a company actually _must_ let people go ... at least you won't have a bad reputation militating against you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've worked in the industry and gotten multiple job offers over the years from them. It still blows my mind that >50% of your compensation is issued as a once-per-year completely-discretionary "bonus". It mostly works fine, due to firms wanting to safeguard their reputation. But if for any reason, you piss off the wrong person or the firm has a bad year, you will lose 50% of your expected compensation... retroactively for the work you had already done in the past year... with no legal protections or recourse whatsoever.

Sure, tech companies have significant bonuses and RSUs as well. But the bonus is more limited in size. And the RSU vesting schedule is more fine-grained, explicitly defined in your employment contract, and the stock valuations are determined by the wider market.

Imagine working in finance for a year, expecting to earn $300k for a year's work, and then finding out at the end of the year that you're only going to get a fraction of that. It blows my mind that this doesn't scare more people.

<comment><USER11> People always explain the existence of bonus culture through the firm's ability to manage comp downward in hard times. I'm not so sure though - I've been through hard times at a hedge fund. One year my bonus froze at the previous year's value, and another year the more senior people took a 10% hit to their bonus.

I honestly think bonus culture is about power - specifically the power you're describing there. Your boss's boss can ask you to come in at 2am because if you don't, you risk taking a massive hit to your comp.

The other reason - also related to what you're pointing out - is that if you quit six months into the year, you leave a significant chunk of money on the table. Silicon Valley has similar golden handcuffs in that regard though.

<comment><USER12> I agree, the power is a factor and that it's not about the company having a down year. This exists in Tech Software sales too. It's about not paying full price for a person who doesn't produce.

It's about shifting the budgeted comp of the under-performers to the over- performers. Inevitably, you will end up with a bunch of over-performers killing it, and the under-performers who can't make their number will leave. It's a giant selection process.

Good employees make bank. Bad employees quit and go somewhere with less downside risk.

<comment><USER13> Perfect. That's what good employees and companies in asymmetric businesses should want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is the opinion of one guy from UBS. Pretty much summarized in two words: irrelevant sensationalism. My bonus isn't going anywhere but up in the next 25 years.

Also this is only talking about trading at bulge bracket banks like UBS but "Wall Street" is much larger and more complex than that.

<comment><USER15> That's cool. I came from the hedge fund side and left 12 years ago, but many of my peers stayed on. In the last 4 years virtually 100% of them have left due to meager bonuses (we're talking about the systems/infrastructure side of the business, including in HFT) and have all gone on to work at FAANGs (average comp I'd say between & 400k-600k).

<comment><USER16> My counter anecdote is that I left an asset manager about 5 years ago, and the firm I left has grown twofold, mostly hiring quants, has low turnover, excellent work life balance, and bonus payouts have gone up. I kick myself for thinking FAANG was greener pastures because I make less money as a senior engineer in FAANG than a two years out of school quant, while also having a more stressful job.

<comment><USER17> What FAANG are you at that's more stressful than being a quant?!

<comment><USER18> FAANG sorted by stressfulness decreasing is N>>>AAF>G, from what I hear. So if they're working for N, this wouldn't be too surprising.

<comment><USER19> Everything I hear from friends at all these companies is that for stress, Amazon > Apple > Netflix > Facebook > Google. Netflix seems far less stressful than Apple from everything I've heard from employees that have worked at both.

<comment><USER20> Think it really depends on where you land. I think everyone agrees that Google is easy-mode; beyond that, it depends on which group you're in.

Two friends at Apple illustrate: one says he does basically nothing but surf the web, the other last I heard is is nearly sleeping under his desk in a crunch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If the blowback from the 2008 financial crisis wasn't enough to kill it, I am skeptical that anything can.

</comment><comment><USER22> The sell-side has become pretty boring and just like other industries. Everything interested has moved to the buy-side, in which bonuses as primary compensation is still alive and well.

<comment><USER23> I don't really understand how Buy Side can be all that good still. AQR is in trouble, Bridgewater had their first loss in decades, Millennium was good, 2 Sigma is OK if unspectacular, Citadel is good, Point72 is still struggling, Rentec is presumably still great but no one ever knows. The HFT funds like Tower/Virtu are all finding their well dry, over all more hedge funds shut down than started. Which hedge funds are actually doing well in this environment? (OK I listed 3) but I don't see the future as very promising.

<comment><USER24> You cannot mix companies like that. Each of the companies you listed have a lot of funds with very different strategies and PnL.

Long short are having a hard time since 2018 for instance, doesn't mean directional funds have too.

Also, we are in a high deleveraging in L/S environment, so the last 2 years should not be taken as benchmark IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Sounds like right now banks want people who can code but also have "quant skills". What's the best way to go about learning/acquiring quant skills?

<comment><USER26> A friend of mine started in the industry right of school with a CS degree but then got a masters in financial engineering at night a few years in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Automation is going to hit the jobs market in many unexpected ways. Interestingly its going to take as big a bite out of white collar jobs as blue collar ones. The majority of trading, accounting, and other number related jobs could disappear along with the truckers, manufacturers and fast food jobs.

We really are entering a new era when it comes to employment and the definition of the 'means of production'. Software and robotics is reaching into uncharted territory.

Should be very interesting in the next decade or two to see if society reacts with the adage to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps or starts to seriously look at a UBI.

<comment><USER28> Technology has been destroying jobs for nearly all of human history and yet here we are with full employment. Those that assert that "this time it's different!" have a steep hill to climb when it comes to evidence.

<comment><USER27> Full employment simply means people have a job, not that it meets their minimum income requirements. This article is a good example, its stating that they will be doing the same work but just getting less pay for it. These people are at the top of the food chain, but the same thing happens to people at the other end.

<comment><USER29> This isn't responsive to the argument 'harryh made; it basically just repeats the premise he responded to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Julius Krein has written about this and I think he analysis is very prescient: [https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-real-class- wa...](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/11/the-real-class-war/) . He associates it with a much greater malaise across the economy, and the growing gap between the top 10% and the 0.1% percent.

</comment><comment><USER31> Leaving aside hedge funds, the business that I see changing most has to be mutual funds.

I've seen a number of mutual fund managers who generally underperform their index for years operating a relatively high-fee fund (compared with ETFs) getting huge bonuses. It's just ridiculous.

Vanguard and ETFs in general are coming for those people, albeit slowly.

<comment><USER32> > mutual fund managers who generally underperform their index for years > operating a relatively high-fee fund (compared with ETFs)

There is a bit more nuance here. The fund manager oftentimes has an obligation to follow a given mandate, which may not seek to outperform a given index. For example, investors may want exposure to specific factors (value, growth, momentum, etc.) or asset class (municipal bonds, preferred stocks, etc.). Additionally, investors may seek funds with better risk adjusted returns as opposed to funds with greater absolute returns. In these cases, managers are compensated for delivering on their mandates. The ETF space has similar high fee products.

<comment><USER31> Even given that nuance you'll find ETFs of all types, generally with fees far less than what you pay for the equivalent mutual fund.

Bottom line, for me, is that the active management employed by a large portion of the mutual fund complex provides little additional returns, yet they get paid handsomely for delivering a sub-standard product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think the headline is a bit sensationalist. But it's mostly true. The GFC was the catalyst. The resulting regulation handcuffed most trading desks (like the failed and nonsensical volcker rule).

But the bonus culture is still alive and well at the small shops, especially the quant shops that embrace automation and scale.

<comment><USER34> Really? It doesn't make much sense to have bonuses for automation since it's largely a group effort. And that's probably the main reason why those performance bonuses are disappearing.

<comment><USER33> Soccer is a group effort, but you still have star players that get paid outsized compensation.

Trading is very much about managing and taking on risk. Even if there are computers managing trading - managing risk is still human driven.

<comment><USER34> Let me clarify my point a bit: the easier it is to measure the actual performance of an employee, the more their compensation will be linked to their performance. Take for example a company developing software. The variance in the compensation of the software developers will be lower than the variance in the compensation of the salespeople. That's because it's much easier to measure the performance of a salesperson.

In most trading shops it's becoming more difficult to estimate the contribution of a single individual because technology is more important than before, and plays a role in how competitive you are. That doesn't make them any less talented, educated, hard-working, etc. It just makes it more difficult to know their exact contribution. Which means that their compensation will not necessarily fall down, but will become less performance- based.

<comment><USER33> I think were talking about 2 different things. Yes, technology is important - but these aren't simple systems - nor are they open source.

In the trading world, as an employer you are disincentived to give the keys to your model - aka your secret sauce - to all your employees. You will reward only a select few who you trust to stay on board, manage the model, continuously improve on it to stay pace with the changing markets. If you give the keys to too many people, eventually they will jump to other shops, copy your ideas and your edge will deteriorate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm just sitting here and wondering what the landscape will look like after the next financial crisis.

<comment><USER36> Bailout by taxpayers - then back to our originally-scheduled programming, injected with warnings about the threat of looming Socialism, without a hint of irony.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I hope more Wall Street companies will use better programming languages and improve the corresponding infrastructure like Jane Street and Bloomberg did with OCaml, like Standard Chartered did with Haskell. I hope to see more adoption of those rather than Python, also hope for getting [1] Rust in this circle.

[1] [https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/proposal-business- applicat...](https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/proposal-business-applications- working-group/10400)

</comment><comment><USER38> Matt Levine on this very topic:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-01-13/the- ro...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-01-13/the-robots-will- take-your-bonus)

Lots of agreement and disagreement.

</comment><comment><USER39> [http://archive.md/MOQhV](http://archive.md/MOQhV)

</comment><comment><USER40> I am sure that wall street /city employers will support a move to more fixed pay _NOT_

I am sure employees would enjoy having a more fixed Quata and not have to worry about what they get come bonus time

</comment><comment><USER41> No it's not. It's simply not.

</comment><comment><USER42> nice post

</comment><comment><USER43> Ha! Picture me rolling on the floor with laughter, barely able to type this comment. The article's idea is somewhere between a fairy tale and an urban legend.</comment>


Apple Will Stop Revealing How Many iPhones It Sells. That's a Bad Sign - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/02/business/dealbook/apple-iphones.html <comment><USER3> Apple's been doing it for some time in "Others" category (Apple TV, Watch, Beats, Airpods) - it's mere extending of its policy. Furthermore, Apple's been increasing prices of iPhones - which will probably lead to worse numbers - <USER2> may lead to greater sales numbers - which Apple feels are much more relevant for investors and for them. It doesn't necessarily have to be a bad sign for Apple, as they always have focused on greater average-selling-price instead of of sold iPhones.</comment>


Is Graphene/Graphane the Future of CPUs? - <AUTHOR> http://michaelgr.com/2009/01/31/is-graphenegraphane-the-future-of-cpus/

<comment><USER2> Graphene is an interesting area of research, and one that is very "hot" right now. My lab mate is doing research on it and it seems like every experiment he tries to do, someone else comes out with a paper in Nature about it the next week.

From what I gather, as soon as graphene can reliably be "printed", we'll get to see some interesting devices. Already some teams have had success with building transistors. <http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/37204>

Lots of interesting Physics is still left to do. There will be many breakthroughs in the coming years.

</comment><comment><USER3> Reading the paper, it seems less useful than perhaps imagined. They claim to be able to reversibly add hydrogen to change the properties of the graphene. This does not seem to lend itself to fast-switching transistors (it seems that the reversal requires ~450C, and hydrogenating requires several hours to fully saturate the graphene.

The big issue is that they have appeared to create a configurable resistor, not a semiconductor. Unless major breakthroughs are made, I doubt that this will be able to replace silicon as the fundamental technology behind computers.</comment>


Understanding TypeScript's Structural Type System [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbZoQlmQaWQ <comment><USER2> Good one. Developers really need to understand Structural vs Nominal typing before saying TypeScript is less type-safe than Java.</comment>


Make Them Want. Delay. Fulfill. Repeat - <AUTHOR> https://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2019/07/make-them-want-delay-fulfill-repeat.html <comment><AUTHOR> Follow-up to The Glorious, Profitable, Inescapable Art of Addiction [1], discussed here [2]

[1] [https://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-glorious- profita...](https://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-glorious-profitable- inescapable-art.html)

[2][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20465756](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20465756)</comment>


Show HN: TinyCert – Certificates as a service - <AUTHOR> https://www.tinycert.org/

<comment><USER2> "Is it safe? ... Unless you install your own CA certificate in the browser or in the root certificate store of whatever other technology you use, they will complain about not being able to validate the certificates. This does not mean they are unsafe, just that they don't know to trust the certificates."

Not being able to trust that you're talking to who you think to are seems like a serious example of "not safe".

Teaching users to click through the warning screen is a serious anti-pattern; the reason browsers keep making it scarier / harder is to try to stop the security theatre that occurs when using untrusted certs.

<comment><USER3> Instantly clear to me that this is for internal tooling use only.

"For what would I use TinyCert certificates? Any place you would use (or should have used) self-signed certificates. Don't leave admin panels, such as phpMyAdmin, a CMS or a webmail install without some protection to keep your password from being intercepted. Use them to protect your test and development installations. Use them on your local POP or IMAP servers. Or use them to test your own code involving certificates." \- [https://www.tinycert.org/faq#use](https://www.tinycert.org/faq#use)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _> The generated keypairs are 1024-bit RSA public and private keys ... This is sufficiently strong for use on the web in the present day_

1024-bit RSA certificates are considered deprecated, no longer issued, and if they don't already throw browser warnings then they will soon.

<comment><USER5> Indeed, this should be changed. The root is 2048 bits, but it's still unacceptable to issue 1024-bit certificates.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will indeed update this. It is still a work in progress.

<comment><AUTHOR> And now it has been updated. Any new CSRs generated will be 2048-bit.

<comment><USER6> What a quick fix, I'll bookmark this and watch what it becomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pretty slick app, clean and easy. It has a ways to go to be adopted in a production environment if that is indeed the goal, but it's a good start.

</comment><comment><USER8> I was glad to see this was free, as it's not _that_ difficult to do this in a development environment. That said, as someone that once created an OSS tool used by tens of thousands of developers - and had one single donation sent my way - I'll probably donate to the developers.

It's great utilities like this that can help introduce you as a developer in a crowded community.

I believe in karma - put something out there for others and it will come back in droves. So, really cool little tool, thank you! And thanks for making it free, I hope Karma treats you well!

Edit: formatting

<comment><USER9> This is not an OSS project though. It's free, but not OSS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not cool. Private keys generated on their servers and then the idea of inatalling the certs as trusted in your OS/browser is mentioned. Also 1024-bit keys. Is this some kind of test to see who falls for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not intended to be a substitute for a proper CA, not intended to be used in production. Only for convenience and if you trust yourself and the service, you can install the your root certificate in your browser. If not, then don't. Just like pushing past the security warning, I strongly recommend against the procedure to end users. Only to people who know what they are doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's nice that this service is trying to make it easier, but why should anyone trust tinycert? How can I trust that tinycert won't issue certificates without my concert? Or sell my private keys to others?

The commands really aren't that complicated. You can (and really should) learn how to do this if you need to issue certificates.

Also, deleting CA's doesn't seem to work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the bug report. I'll look into that.

As for why to trust it... you won't know to trust me any more than a real CA. With a real CA you also only have their word. I've taken as many steps as I can to ensure that the private keys are not kept unencrypted anywhere where this is not needed (and they are only needed when signing something and when you request a download) and that the passphrase is in flight as short as possible.

While anything is theoretically possible with enough malicious intent, I've made the selling private keys or issuing certificates with your private key without your consent as exceedingly difficult as possible for myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Deletion is fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This obviously should not be added to the list of trusted CAs in any browser, and these certs should not be used in the public web. Unfortunately, neither should many certificate authorities be trusted.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDmj_xe7EIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDmj_xe7EIQ)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify: there is not 1 root certificate for all of the TinyCert generated certificates. There are root certificates for every single account. I did this intentionally to ensure that nobody would be careless enough to trust such a root and thus implicitly trust every TinyCert certificate everywhere. Basically, only the people who created their own CA through TinyCert have any business installing their root certificates (and only theirs!) into their browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is very much like something I built years ago.

It was just a front end to a back end that didn't exist yet, but it's brought back some nice memories. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER14> I don't like the idea of not having my development certificates under control. They should be as secure as the production certs in my opinion. I use PHPKi for that purpose, it's not pretty but easy to setup and it runs in my own environment.

</comment><comment><USER9> I just wonder why there's zero info about who's behind this.

<comment><USER15> This guy: Steven Don (@shdon): [https://twitter.com/shdon](https://twitter.com/shdon)

Same nickname as the OP and tweets about tinycerts.

<comment><USER9> Thanks! It's a great project and better transparency will definitely help its adoption.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you find new projects? - <AUTHOR>

I'm sure that I'm not the only programmer who has ever felt the need to build something new. I can't be the only one who wants to build something quick for the instant gratification of completing and showing off a new tool/toy/project.<p>So how do you find a new project to work on in those times when you feel the need to build, but don't have anything to work on? Is there a secret "here's some ideas" list, or do you keep a list of every thought you have for when these moods happen? <comment><USER2> When I get a conversation going with a friend and it turns out it can be done with some programming, I often do it. But I only do it when I have 4-5h I can spend with them to get it done and then I walk away from it. Really awesome to help friends, especially when wine is involved.

My bread and butter business comes through networking at events in my niche and then making continuous updates on social networks so people I've worked with remember I'm out there and pass my name on when people mention business I could do. I maintain a "resume site" with a contact form that facilitates catching those leads.

When I meet people who come through the system I ask the source of their referral. If I know the referral person well, I will take the project 98% of the time.

If they say "I found you on the Internet" I probably accept only 25-50% of the offers, I take extra long to respond to the quote request to test their patience, and if they even flinch on the topic of money I bail out before we get a contract started.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a big list with hunches that might work an I also use my idea generator at: www.ideaoverload.com to find new ideas to write into that other list

</comment><comment><USER4> I have two lists: one for new business ideas / MVP, and another for tech skill development - new skills and challenges.

</comment><comment><USER5> I keep a list of ideas that occur to me on more than one occasion and I think could have potential.</comment>


Amazon opens first bricks-and-mortar bookstore - <AUTHOR> http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-opens-first-bricks-and-mortar-bookstore-at-u-village/ <comment><USER3> I'm very curious what Amazon is trying to do here. Can the business plan pencil out by selling enough additional goods to pay the store's operating expenses? Is the real goal to expose more people to the Kindle who wouldn't otherwise see one, i.e. it's a Trojan?

<comment><USER4> In 2013, Amazon had 65% market share of online book sales [1]. It wouldn't surprise me if this was 20% higher now.

When customers walk into a Barnes and Noble (or any bookstore) and browse books but don't buy (for example, because they found a cheaper price online), they are most likely to end up on Amazon to complete the purchase. B&N did the work but Amazon got the money.

Amazon doesn't have that problem. They don't need to sell books in the store to "pay the store's operating expense" \- they just need people to come in and browse.

Currently, Amazon doesn't compete for a high percentage of books (50%) moved through physical stores [2]. They are in the enviable position of being able to create stores that don't leak sales to competitors. This is the final nail in B&N's coffin.

[1] [http://www.thewire.com/business/2014/05/amazon-has- basically...](http://www.thewire.com/business/2014/05/amazon-has-basically-no- competition-among-online-booksellers/371917/)

[2] [http://www.dailydot.com/business/ebook- sales-2013-revenue/](http://www.dailydot.com/business/ebook- sales-2013-revenue/)

<comment><USER5> This is an interesting thesis... which is that brick and mortar can work if you also own the online alternative.

I never bought books and B&N because I knew I could get the book cheaper at Amazon. The same with toys when I used to shop at ToysRUs. But those are both goods that I'd actually like to buy on the spot. If I know that the price in the store is the same as online, I'd probably do a lot of in store purchases.

And since I'm a Prime customer, they save 2-day shipping cost to me (I'll continue to be a Prime customer).

<comment><USER6> I used to hold this viewpoint until I watched a video (I can't seem to find it now) that made a pretty good point. The point was something along the following: "I like book stores. I like going in and flipping through the books. Sure, I could buy the book on Amazon for $4 less, but if I keep doing that eventually book stores won't be around. And I like book stores."

Ever since then, I usually try to buy the book in B&N or wherever, provided that's where I am at the time.

(Something like a campus book store and textbooks, however, is an entirely different case...)

<comment><USER7> For such concerned customers, Amazon Book store seems to be the solution. So still you can flip the pages and buy online but Book store won't go anywhere.

<comment><USER8> Is there an incentive for them to continue operating physical locations once their competitors are out of business?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting what they might be able to do here with their geo data... University Village is a high-end shopping center with a lot of high-income traffic. The way they're stocking the shelves - covers facing out - <USER2> with the convenience of strolling down from the big Starbucks to the store to grab the latest just might work for this clientele.

Not to mention the chance to get more Kindles into the hands of folks with low price sensitivity...

</comment><comment><USER10> If I could spend a couple hours comfortably browsing real books and then take some of them home on my Kindle, I would be very happy.

<comment><USER11> Can't you do this at any library or book store?

<comment><USER12> Maybe the library but the book store...well not if you are then taking home only what you purchase from Amazon instead of the place you just comfortably browsed inventory. I find it hard to understand the logic of using a place of business in order to take advantage and not purchase from them. People justify it in many ways but none of those justifications stands up to examination.

<comment><USER13> There's nothing to justify. They let you freely browse their inventory, and you browsed the inventory.

<comment><USER14> With the expectation that if you like their inventory, you'll pay for the convenience and service in store. If you receive a benefit from that convenience and service, there's no way to contribute to the existence of the store outside of purchasing their product (I suppose you could donate straight to the owner, but that's messy).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This takes "Look Inside" to a whole new level.

It's a neat idea, and a good way to put a public face on their business.

The major reason I'd still prefer to shop online is the reviews. I doubt that those are printed alongside the physical copies. Sure, I could read the reviews on my phone - but why not then finish my one-click "Buy" instead of walking all the way to a store just to look at my phone screen?

I hope that their employees are treated better than those in the warehouses, too. (from what I've heard, it's pretty bad behind the scenes).

<comment><USER16> According to the article, even though you can't see all the reviews, you can see at least one review or a rating: "Below each book on the shelf is a card with either a review or a rating from the site."

<comment><USER17> "A rating". Why not give high-margin items get a cherrypicked high rating, and low-margin items a cherrypicked three/four star rating (you can't just say _everything_ is five stars, of course).

<comment><USER18> Possibly, but given (1) everything in the store is highly rated and (2) they're as much as asking customers to "showroom" and check for more information on Amazon.com, it seems like that would backfire pretty quickly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Interestingly a lot of data they say they're using is available to any bookstore. I wonder if there are small mom-and-pop chains that use Amazon ratings and sales ranks as cues for their buyer.

A tie-in to an e-reader that still makes the bookstore money is a killer feature for me as a reader. Indies still haven't gotten that totally sorted yet, and it keeps me buying more paper books than I'd like, and also buying less books at indie's than I'd like at the same time.

<comment><USER20> A friend of mine gave me guff about my kindle -- his parents had a book store, but couldnt keep it open. I started to think about how an indie book store could work in an ereader world; my ideas:

You'd need an ereader with a small nfc reader or barcode scanner. Customers browsing the paper books in store could elect to buy the same book for the ereader in store if they wanted by just scanning the book with their ereader, then taking it up to the front and pressing a 'show cart' feature that would give a barcode for the cashier to scan, bringing up the cart total payable. Upon that payment finishing, the ereader would get a ping from a server and instruct it to download the ebooks just purchased. The store would get a majority of the cut of the vendor side of the sale (if amazon takes 30%, a bookstore would get 25% and the service provider/ebook mfg would get 5$).

This would allow people to support indie stores, continue to buy both ebooks and regular books, and do them both at the same time.

It's not a complete or foolproof plan, just an idea I had that could help batter down the hatches.

<comment><USER21> The more you think about it, both the indie book store owner and Amazon would have no incentive to participate. The indie book owner wouldn't want to give away 20% of gross sales to survive, because there isn't much there to begin with.

If Amazon books takes off, maybe they franchise it out and allow personal branding of some kind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Today, a bookstore. Tomorrow, Amazon's the new Walmart/Tesco and everything's priced the same as Amazon.com.

Either that, or this is a glitch in the Matrix and a digital store accidentally became real.

Seriously though, the digital-to-physical world touches like a cookbook row of the most wished-for cookbooks or Amazon's top preorders on a real shelf is fascinating. Almost surprising we don't see more things like that already in other stores. It's data eating the world.

<comment><USER23> Can Amazon compete with Wal-Mart though? Everything I see at Wal-Mart tends to be a good bit cheaper than the Amazon equivalent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was just there an hour ago to report on it. Any questions?

<comment> tom-_- How are the prices displayed? They should match the .com price, and I assume the .com price can change frequently.

<comment><USER24> The price isn't displayed - you see the standard/printed price on the book itself (i.e. $25 in usa) and then take it to one of several little stations that tells you the current price on Amazon ($16.94 or whatever, you save X amount). You can also scan barcodes on each little review placard with the app and it'll pull up the price.

Not ideal, I'll allow, but since the prices fluctuate there's not an easy way to do it without looooots of digital signage.

<comment><USER25> This seems so backwards. Amazon lead on cheap prices. But this retail store only displays book/listed price. Which are higher. The only way to get the real price is to manually scan each one. Why? What am I missing?

<comment><USER26> > Amazon lead on cheap prices.

Perhaps for the mass-market titles but once you start pushing into the long- tail then RRP becomes much more common.

Couple of random examples from Amazon UK this morning:

You Save: £0.72 (2%) You Save: £0.55 (2%)

I doubt many people will see savings like that as incentives. Rather, Amazon's advantage is that they actually offer such books for sale without the hassles of persuading a clerk to order a single copy for you, assuming their supplier carries it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Anyone think there is a future where 500 foldable e-ink screens can finally replace the demand for a hard cover book?

<comment><USER9> Nope. Real-world share-ability and resale is a pretty unsolved problem...

<comment><USER28> The latter problem seems to be solving itself.

Used bookshops are closing and selling used books online is getting less and less profitable.

<comment><USER29> I suspect ebooks will replace the mass market pulp sort of books while higher quality first-run paperback and hardback books will persist. With a much smaller resale market and books worth owning for more reasons than just one or two read-throughs the whole market looks different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> it's either a pr action or a new tax lowering/avoiding scheme.

</comment><comment><USER31> the definition of being an _______</comment>


Major uncertainty revolves around the TPP's successful ratification - <AUTHOR> https://openmedia.org/en/tpp-falling-apart-lets-take-look-where-12-nations-are <comment><USER4> The Congress will get every shred of legislation they can suck from the desperation of the Obama Administration to have it pass. No legislator wants to have their name on the bill before elections, especially without official support from the head of parties. So it's only going to happen, even though basically everyone in the hall of Washington want it, if there's enough collateral or safety in it for each of the signees.

If it doesn't pass in the Lame Duck it's likely to be fielded in the first couple years of the next administration after it gets established, likely with some face-saving side legislation "oh with this economic stimulus (e.g. TPA) or additional clause regarding currency manipulation suddenly the TPP is a great deal!"

The establishment know that TPP is about national power - <USER3> containing China by isolating it from major trading partners. Soon it will begin to field this in a 'PR friendly form' ("US has to write the rules or China will") to US citizens through official statements and press releases, in the hopes of getting broader appeal by more explicit support for it's most significant features.

I think it's really likely to pass, though not without a groaning and distrustful public - who will view the TPP (much because its true) - as a measure for the economy that further concentrates wealth, protecting and empowering the industries, technologies and investments that are already at the peak of the domestic economy - while forcing those at the lowest to compete for space even more.

The TPP I don't think is falling apart so much as it's starting to have to see a little real sunlight, because the public hasn't bought into the "Free Trade" (TM) labeling it carries. Few understand that the alternatives to the TPP pushed by China (CREC, etc) are also - in fact probably even more in the most traditional sense - 'free trade' deals; instead they have a basic idea that the TPP isn't exactly what Washington says that it is and that the machinations about how it's going to be good for the US economy doesn't mean that the 'goodness' will be charitably and judiciously applied across the economy.

Ultimately we're in for some pretty interesting stage productions out of K Street for the next few months.

<comment><USER5> > The establishment know that TPP is about national power - <USER3> > containing China by isolating it from major trading partners.

Can anyone explain how this works exactly? The most plausible explanation I've seen is that it can prevent China exporting counterfeits of American goods to Indonesia, for instance.

This presumes the Indonesian government is actually going to be proactive about enforcement. But while it may be a boon to some American companies I don't see how it causes China to be isolated. China is still free to export non-counterfeit goods. It's still free to export goods counterfeited from companies who lack the resources to pursue international enforcement. And quite frankly, it's still free to export the rest with an appropriate application of subterfuge.

<comment><USER4> > The most plausible explanation I've seen is that it can prevent China > exporting counterfeits of American goods to Indonesia, for instance.

I would point to something like "Revising US Grand Strategy Toward China" ([http://carnegieendowment.org/files/Tellis_Blackwill.pdf](http://carnegieendowment.org/files/Tellis_Blackwill.pdf)).

To summarize what could take pages: it's about excluding China from the ability to trade in it's region. Imagine if an adversary of the United States (China, Russia) created an economic trade block with Canada, Mexico, Panama, Cuba, Japan, and Western Europe that excluded the United States.

This would damage the state power of America for a number of reasons: America would lose out in financial aspect of state competition, the adversary would gain the ability to cut off supply chains and sources important to military competition (everything from munitions to silicon), and the adversary would build positive relationships with the neighbor states (which becomes especially helpful if they can be aggressed toward supporting one side of a power conflict).

Furthermore, the ability to trade with neighbors of an adversary nation allows a country to 'balance' them to greater ability: making them compete with one another in certain sectors, furnishing them with particular military and intelligence capabilities, otherwise giving more say in what the power relationships look like. The foreign adversary can use that to their advantage to shape the region.

Within the TPP itself contain a number of intellectual property laws and international dispute proceedures that have been negotiated by every power in the region with the exception of China. That is to say, were China later to join in the trade bloc of its region, it would fight an uphill struggle with every intellectual property dispute and state settlement case because it wasn't at the table to negotiate and agree to terms that would be mutually fair.

Indeed, the former chief economist for the World Bank has said "The American posture, having designed a Pacific Trade Agreement, that was crafted in a way that whatever was legally possible made it not practically realistic for China to participate."

Think damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't. That's what makes the TPP such good economic and security policy.

It is the US ambition to have better tools for containing China as it is the preeminent rising power on the world stage, which immediately makes it a potential security risk to the United States.

The strengthening of containment policies through the TPP is of course not the only lever of foreign policy. The paper linked above suggests a number of other activities such as aggravating and potentially occupying North Korea on China's southern border, building stronger relationships between US allies (SK and Japan) and engaging in lawfare and propaganda to problematize China's national security interests in the South China Sea (where historically it has been incredibly vulnerable to military blockade).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After this article was published McConnell said he wouldn't bring the TPP up for a vote this year [0] so its prospects are indeed dimming.

[0] [http://thehill.com/blogs/floor- action/senate/293344-mcconnel...](http://thehill.com/blogs/floor- action/senate/293344-mcconnell-tpp-not-coming-up-this-year)</comment>


Ask HN: Hacker News rate limits and robots policy? - <AUTHOR>

I'm writing a program that checks Hacker News for updates and I've discovered that it's pretty easy to get my IP address blocked, even at a modest access rate. Is there an official HN policy about robots or at least some explanation about the limits?
I notice that https://news.ycombinator.com/robots.txt declares Crawl-delay to be 30, meaning that a remote entity should not make a request more than once every 30 seconds. However, I've managed to get myself blocked even with much longer delays than this. I'd think this misinformation would cause problems with search engine crawlers, unless HN gives them special exemptions.
FWIW, my observation is that HN seems to block my IP address after it has made ~1000 requests, even if this is over a very long period of time. In my latest test, polling on a 2-minute interval got me blocked after 34 hours. Maybe others can share their experiences? <comment><USER2> There's an official API that's much easier to work with and doesn't have aggressive precautions in place - [http://hnsearch.com/api](http://hnsearch.com/api)

<comment><USER3> BTW: there is a limit of 1000 results per search.

<comment><USER2> You can mitigate that by spidering users and searching domains to build a more complete database -

[http://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?filte...](http://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?filter\[fields\]\[type\]=submission&filter\[fields\]\[username\]=minimaxir)

[http://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?filte...](http://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?filter\[fields\]\[type\]=submission&q=arstechnica.com)

I wrote a small NodeJS spider if anyone's interested -

[https://github.com/benlowry/hnsubmitterstats](https://github.com/benlowry/hnsubmitterstats)

<comment><USER3> Coincidentally, I was looking into that option as well, and that seems perfect for my needs :) thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From my experience the actual allowed crawl interval is somewhere between 120 and 180 seconds.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm actually trying a test with a 180-second interval now. We'll see if this lasts longer than 51 hours.</comment></comment>


Did Vox Just Fire the Entire Golden State of Mind Staff via Twitter? - <AUTHOR> https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2019/12/16/21024619/nba-2019-did-vox-just-fire-the-entire-golden-state-of-mind-staff <comment><USER2> It'll be interesting to see if all the California SB Nation bloggers just transfer their readership to their own privately owned websites.

Their wasn't ever much of a network effect with these sports blogs just a first mover advantage and bunch of young Neo-journalists generating lots of content.

If these fired bloggers just move onto their own sites, lots of readers may follow.

Content is king, if Vox can maintain content from their headquarters, they're fine, if not this will be a canary in the coal mine for all the underpaid sports bloggers grinding it out for vox media.</comment>


Nintendo 64 Sound Tools - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/details/Nintendo64SoundToolsWindows95Version3.141997 <comment><USER2> It sure feels like N64 era software... [http://i.imgur.com/Qj4Ow9t.png](http://i.imgur.com/Qj4Ow9t.png)

</comment><comment><USER3> Are there any online versions of the manuals? What are the "Sound Tools"? The description is "applications used by musicians to create music for games" Sounds like some kind of tracker, or DAW... does anyone have any screen shots or online info about them? (I don't have a windows machine, and I don't even know what you do with a .iso file anymore!)

<comment><USER2> If you install it there is a manual. Several, actually.

Programmer's Manual: [http://i.imgur.com/yUwNhrZ.png](http://i.imgur.com/yUwNhrZ.png)

User's Manual: [http://i.imgur.com/zXUkv2T.png](http://i.imgur.com/zXUkv2T.png)

Tutorial: [http://i.imgur.com/RspXq2i.png](http://i.imgur.com/RspXq2i.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand what this is. The .iso file seems to be empty.

<comment><USER5> Its not empty. It includes autorun installability for Windows (presumably 95 and later) as well as what appears to be a version for SGI which understandably requires a bit more manual effort. Here is an excerpt of the Release Notes:

      Release Contents

      </comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

      N64 Sound Tools version 3.14 consists of four different components.

      1. Sound Tools
         The Sound Tools are the GUI applications used by musicians to create
         music for games.  These tools are located in the $(INSTALL)\N64Tools
         directory.  Where $(INSTALL) is the installation directory (typically C:\).

         The two main applications are the N64 Waveform Editor (dse.exe) and
         the N64 Sequencer (dream.exe).

      2. Sound Tools Libraries
         The Sound Tools Libraries contains two different libraries; the Sound Tools
         API Library and the N_Audio Driver for Sound Tools.  These libraries allow
         programmers to incorporate music created by the PC Sound Tools into their games.

         The Sound Tools API Library is located in:
           $(INSTALL)\N64Tools\lib\lib-src
         The N_Audio Driver for Sound Tools is located in:
           $(INSTALL)\N64Tools\lib\n_gaudio.

         In addition, the library files (.a) are installed in:
           $(ROOT)\usr\lib
         and the corresponding include files (.h) are installed in:
           $(ROOT)\usr\include\PR.

         Where $(ROOT) is the location of the N64 operating system.  This is so the library
         files are in the proper directory for linking at compile time.

      3. Sound Tools Manuals
        This release contains three HTML manuals: the Sound Tools User's Guide,
        the Sound Tools Programmer's Guide and the Tutorial Guide.  Pointers to
        all three manuals have been created under "N64"\"Sound Tools" in your Start
        Menu.

        The Sound Tools User's Guide describes how to use the Sequencer and Waveform
        Editor.  The Sound Tools Programmer's Guide explains the Sound Tools API Library.
        Finally, the Tutorial Guide gives a brief overview of the process used to create
        music and incorporate it into your game code.

        The Sound Tools Manuals are located in $(INSTALL)\N64Manuals\Sound_Tools.

      4. Demos
         A number of new demos have been added since the previous version of Sound
         Tools.  These demos illustrate how to use the Sound Tools API Library
         to perform a number of functions, such as fading songs in and out, creating
         sound effects, using markers in a song file, using a lookup table and more.

         The demos are located in $(INSTALL)\N64Tools\Demos.  You can compile each demo
         seperately by changing to a specific demo directory and typing 'make'.  Or
         you can compile all demos at once by typing 'make' in the top-level demo
         directory.

EDIT: updated repeatedly trying to fix formatting (and personal grammar failing).

<comment><USER4> Ahh, thanks. Must've mounted it incorrectly somehow!</comment></comment>


Long Read: Alternatives for Proof of Work, Part 1: Proof of Stake - <AUTHOR> https://bytecoin.org/blog/proof-of-stake-proof-of-work-comparison/

<comment><USER2> when will be the 2nd part published?

</comment><comment><USER3> good article, thx!

<comment><USER4> yes, well done. I also liked pos explanation by Buterin ([https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned- lov...](https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-love-weak- subjectivity/))</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which technical course do you wish you took in college? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> In grad school it would have been the seminar on Density Functional Theory. (ex. how to do detailed computer simulations of the properties of materials.)

As an undergrad (I studied physics and math and went on to do a PhD in condensed matter theory) I would like to have taken some more CS. I traded CS 101 for a comparative programming languages class and also took one credit courses in C and TeX from the illustrious John Shipman. A compilers class would have been nice too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Im happy with what i took, but i wish i took more time. Dont course overload, especially in classes that lay the foundation for advanced coursework (like linear algebra and stats)</comment>


Aerospace Company Develops Drone That Can Fly Continuously For 5 Years - <AUTHOR> http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2013/10/07/aerospace-company-develops-drone-that-can-fly-continuously-for-5-years/ <comment><USER2> More like "imagines" said drone.

There are many companies involved in manufacturing solar drones; most of the industry heavyweights are in on the action. This company is not one of those. They have a small-scale prototype and are claiming a 60m wingspan (enormous), 65,000-feet-flight for 5 years. NASA among others haven't gotten a month. The model they have is a glider with solar panels. There is literally nothing new here besides the marketing. (They also didn't coin "atmospheric satellite", that goes back decades; AeroVironment had a company with the same concept in the 90s.)

This is a small group out of New Mexico with minimal funding and experience making wildly exaggerated claims. Five years is just laughably irresponsible for anyone involved in aerospace engineering.

In real engineering news, Astrium bought QinetiQ's solar UAV Zephyr program, and outlined last month an actual two-week high-altitude 70,000-foot solar flight here: [http://www.astrium.eads.net/en/news2/first-flight-of- astrium...](http://www.astrium.eads.net/en/news2/first-flight-of-astrium-s- zephyr-solar-haps.html). This is a real engineering team with real money, real development and a real engineering feat.

Notice the lack of "five years" linkbait in Astrium's press release... which is why it wasn't spam-posted all over the web this week.

<comment><USER3> Two weeks is a lifetime compared to vaporware.

It's interesting engineering that should keep improving as photovoltaics and batteries improve. A fleet of these sun chasing giant satellites that don't need to come down(but can if necessary)? It's like a Dyson swarm, except on a lot more manageable altitude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So this looks pretty cool, and their marketing department already coined the term "atmospheric orbit", but their aircraft currently looks like vaporware. All of their videos are pre-rendered and the short clip in the article is too [0] small to be the aircraft they are trying to sell.

It also raises some flags when their quotes are from Senators and their "social proof" logos aren't customers they are supplies of the components they are using.

0 - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If8MODnvjhw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If8MODnvjhw)

<comment><USER5> Fake it til you make it with sweet sweet government money (re appropriated from the citizenry for their own good)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Must be Birds vs. Drones day on HN: [http://cl.ly/image/3F0v1f2l3j0Z](http://cl.ly/image/3F0v1f2l3j0Z)

<comment><USER7> I guess this article is here because someone mentioned it earlier today on the bird thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6528099](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6528099)

(In drone vs. bird I'm all for UAVs! ;). I know that birds are more advanced / sophisticated pieces of technology, but drones are ours, made by humans. Regardless of all the unfortunate military application, I feel proud for humanity that we keep on inventing more and more amazing things.)

<comment><USER8> One advantage of birds is that their droppings are easily washed off my car, unlike the droppings of UAVs.

<comment><USER9> UAV's droppings will wash your car and everybody onboard easily..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What an unbelievably shitty website.

Here's a link to the video. Had to youtube it because that site kept on causing my browser to crash.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TkmZxRTQWk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TkmZxRTQWk)

</comment><comment><USER11> I assume the video at the top is of a smaller prototype?

Making something that flies on solar power is not that hard, but I wonder how they are going to deal with mechanical and electronic failures.

On the timescale of years, something will break or crash, or suffer from PEBCAK

"you're paying some dude to watch the payload and make sure the aircraft doesn't do anything stupid."

<comment><USER12> It's certainly possible to make bearings and whatnot that last for enormous lifetimes. It's all a question of cost.

When your buyer is the ridiculously over-funded US Military, you can afford to charge quite a bit more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can this give us cheaper world wide internet coverage? I have also been thinking of using the moon as a satellite laser relay, latency would be 1.2sec but you would get internet.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_Moon_Relay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_Moon_Relay) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Laser_Ranging_experiment)

</comment><comment><USER14> A fleet of these seems like a great way to provide cheap internet.

<comment><USER15> That's what balloons are for: [http://www.google.com/loon/](http://www.google.com/loon/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think it's time to get into the counter drone systems business. What's an easier target than a drone that flies for five years or just simply continuously. I wonder how much the cartels would pay for systems that can detect, track, and integrate with a means for "dealing with them". No, not necessarily in a destructive manner.

Attack pigeons, anyone?

<comment><USER17> some kind of Ender's Game version of a distributed network 'game' of attacking drones w/ other drones I suppose could be fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Assuming this is not vapourware, it's awesome! It carries 250 pounds, which is ~113Kg. So I'm like 80Kg or so. That leaves about 30kg, which is almost enough for a month's supply of food. If we can build a system of balloons to periodically float up supplies, we can seriously just live in the sky and have wild adventures!

</comment><comment><USER19> How will the drones handle bad weather if they're continuously operational? They're not really quick so they can't outrun all kinds of weather.

<comment><USER20> Is there much weather at 65000 ft?

<comment><USER21> Not really. Thunder clouds usually top out around 60.000 feet. There are some wind phenomena that could reach this high, but mostly I think it's calm at this altitude. The air is so thin you would have to have very strong winds for there to be a problem.

<comment><USER22> That's what makes me wonder... How will they keep a plane flying at that altitude at 68mph? The thinner the air, the faster your plane must move.

(Ok, 250lbs is not that much weight, but you must add the plane's weight. And it does not have huge wings.)

<comment><USER21> Aerodynamic lift (in Newtons) is proportional to airspeed and invesely proportional to air pressure. So is aerodynamic drag. This holds true up to the transsonic region; ~800 kph of true airspeed. As long as you're subsonic, it's sufficient to have the same amount of thrust as at low altitudes, and you'll keep flying at the speed required for lift >= aircraft weight.

Granted, this will require proportionally higher propeller RPM, but with electric engines this is unproblematic. You'd get in trouble with hydrocarbon engines though, since you need the same amount of oxygen to generate power. So at altitude, you'd need a turbocharger or similar machinery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> 250lb - can carry Hellfire. New incarnation of a multi-month-on-station [previously nuclear] bomber/cruise missile concept.

<comment><USER5> Imagine these things being able to be re-supplied with munitions whilst in flight.

<comment><USER23> well, imagination can run pretty wild - instead of Hellfire one can just arm them with a good 50KWt solid state laser - no resupply necessary:

[http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=52628](http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=52628)

"The device cut through a 15-mm-thick steel girder at a range of 1000 m, shot down several diving target unmanned aerial vehicles at a range of 2 km flying more than 50 m/s, and engaged an 82-mm-diameter steel ball representing a mortar round and traveling approximately 50 m/s. "

<comment><USER5> Thats amazing. Imagine also when we get good graphene super-capacitors that are smallish and light-ish and we can fill the wings with them. Trickle charge them with solar power and have each one large enough for a burst of that laser - and it can charge over time and then have a battery of burst avaialable to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not sure why they're be better than balloons except perhaps to deploy quickly to a region.

</comment><comment><USER25> All it needs to do now is shoot lasers, this will ensure it can do damage the entire 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER26> The commentary on that post is frightening.</comment>


Netherlands: From drug tolerance to 'narco state' - <AUTHOR> https://www.rt.com/news/419856-narco-state-netherlands-police/ <comment><USER2> Given all the news about Russian interference can we trust news from rt.com?</comment>


Show HN: I built an app that ensures that I track my home office working hours - <AUTHOR> https://waywo.simon-frey.eu/ <comment><USER2> I use three very simple aliases for the commandline,

      alias ttag='/cygdrive/c/Dropbox/tools/ttag/ttag.sh'
      alias ttagcat='cat /cygdrive/c/Dropbox/tools/ttag/ttag-logfile.txt'
      alias ttago='open /cygdrive/c/Dropbox/tools/ttag/ttag-logfile.txt'

where `ttag.sh` is

      # specify the logfile
      LOGFILE=/cygdrive/c/Dropbox/tools/ttag/ttag-logfile.txt
      # timestamp format
      TIMESTAMP_NICE=$(date +"%F %H.%M.%S - %s:")
      # always append to the logfile
      echo $TIMESTAMP_NICE "$@" >> $LOGFILE

simple enough for me :) very simple to add a small note from the commandline, which is timestamped. Makes it easier to get a grasp of how much time I've spent on something, eg when switching between customer projects.

<comment><USER3> I have aliases very similar to yours (only differences are that they're one or two characters long, and the logs use ISO 8601 date format). Super quick to append, read, and edit personal logs - no GUI could be better or more immediate. I often grep it, but gotta admit could use an automated way to calculate time differences.

<comment><USER2> yeah, I include timestamp not only in easy human readable format, but also in epoch timestamp, so it's easier to calculate time diffs between entries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was gonna say positive things until the page-wide unclosable buy-me-now popup jumped up. This is the kind of web no one wants to touch, even with a long stick, never mind sponsoring it through an annual payment.

<comment><USER5> Pop-ups work well, most people aren't technical and find no problem with them.

<comment><USER6> What do you mean by "work well"? Work well _for who_?

Just because a shitty, user-hostile web has been accepted by non-technical users (because they don't know any better) doesn't mean we should condone or encourage the behaviour.

The same applies to spammers, telemarketers, etc. We've more or less "accepted" them as an ever-present nuisance, but it doesn't mean we should legitimise nor approve that scummy behaviour.

<comment><USER5> They work well for the creator of the site. If the prime metric is, are people wanting what I'm providing and it's easy for them to do so, then pop-ups work very well. If the metric is, is my site pristine enough for other engineers, then no they don't work well, as seen by the responses here. The choice is in what to optimize for. If it works, it works, regardless of whatever scumminess you may perceive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wrote something more automatic for myself. I ask the Google Calendar API how many hours I spend in meetings that week. From that I calculate how many working hours I have for other things. I then use the WakaTime API to get how many hours I spent working already (making sure to not double count during meetings). WakaTime can track my editor usage, terminal usage and work in Chrome (e.g. PR reviews). I use a separate Chrome profile to make sure I only track work-related browsing time, and Choosy to open links to our company GitHub automatically in the work profile. I show a summary of the time spent and left in my terminal prompt. Overall really happy with it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Just for my interest: Would you use Waywo if it would work with WakaTime (as that came up as Feature Request more often)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've noticed that my office is working more now that we're all remote

<comment><USER9> Less time wasted on meetings ?

<comment><USER10> It's actually an opposite in remote-friendly companies - more time is wasted in meetings using corporate video conference software.

<comment><USER11> I've worked remote for about 12 years. I can count the number of video conference meetings I've had in that time on one hand. I could also cut off both my hands and still count the number I've had.

Hint: it's zero.

Remote working won't fix stupid management decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I personally really like RescueTime ([https://www.rescuetime.com](https://www.rescuetime.com)), does all of the tracking automatically and allows for custom categorization and productivity settings. Been using it for many many years, they've been keeping up, even added a mobile version a couple years back.

</comment><comment><USER13> I swear by [https://timingapp.com/](https://timingapp.com/) it's almost frictionless to track time. I've been using it at work for over 2 years daily now, and I don't even use the results anymore.

<comment><USER14> +1 Have been using it for a few months and it's given me great insights on how I use (waste) my time. I especially like the fact that it's practically out- of-the-box zero-configuration tracking. Highly recommended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wrote a prototype for something like this years ago but don't know enough frontend stuff to take it to production. The big difference is there was a certain amount of randomization to the survey prompt. And had some calendar functionality so as not to ask during scheduled meetings. And allowed you to set some top-level strategy/goals, so that the question "what are you working on now / how bout now / etc" could include a bit more context around core workstreams. Wanted to avoid typical taskmaster PM or GTD approaches that skew toward micromanagement, while still maintaining a general sense of measurable progress.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Never loose any of your entries"

Lose.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Since 2010 or so, I am using the hamster applet under Gnome. Combined with low-tech "paper", it has served me and my customers really well[1].

The Hamster project do not have a single homepage, thus the "search" link.

[0]: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=gnome+hamster+tracker](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=gnome+hamster+tracker)

[1]: [https://www.ceondo.com/ecte/2018/02/10-years-home-office- lea...](https://www.ceondo.com/ecte/2018/02/10-years-home-office-learned- lessons/)

</comment><comment><USER18> One of the pros of the paid plan being "No more license key interruptions" concerns me, how often will it nag for payment? I understand needing to be paid but shouldn't nag screens be for trial periods leading to paid subscriptions not for "free" tiers?

This concern stems from the giant full screen unclosable (no X at top right) popup offering me 20% off if I buy now before I've even finished reading the landing page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the popup was a mistake :D Came up in other comments as well.

Waywo asks every 5th time for the license key, it is the same dialog as the tracking one and thereby not full screen. It can easily be closed again

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been using Taskwarrior in conjunction with Timewarrior to track time spent on work tasks. I used to be skeptical about it but the whole command- line first, spartan interface does wonders at keeping me focused. Better yet: it allows to set up work hours so I don't have to stop a task whenever I'm no longer working.

</comment><comment><USER20> I made something similar using Hammerspoon on Mac. I make a list of tasks, one per line, with a time estimate. Hammerspoon will show the active task, the time elapsed, and the estimate on top of everything using canvas. It's helped me stay on task and be more realistic with my planning. If anyone is interested I can share.

<comment><USER21> Fellow Hammerspoon user here (great tool). Yes, I'd be interested to see how you did this. Please share!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not one comment in here is positive which saddens me. In the end, HN should encourage people to build awesome solutions. But even Dropbox got negative comments when they launched on HN, so maybe this is just how things work.

So here's my (positive) take: Great work, thanks for sharing. I especially like the design of the page, playful but still clean. AFAIK there's a similar app from toggl themselves, what are the advantages of your solution?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for that comment! HN has a hard audience, but I thing most points are quite valid so I will take them as feedback :D

Toggls solution is mainly for time tracking directly from the browser, so you do not have to open the app. They currently do not provide the interruption feature to ask you in (on top of) every application you are currently using.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Folks don't even track working hours at work let alone home

</comment><comment><USER24> i use harvest and i hate it but the toolbar app is convenient & delightfully buggy

</comment><comment><USER25> Uuh no thanks. How about we trust employees and simply check the result of their work? Who cares if someone has spent N hours sitting in front of the screen, show me the results.

<comment><USER26> I get that, and I feel the same, but a lot of jobs require time entries with work descriptions. I have had several of them.

Finding ways to minimize that burden on your workday is really nice. I hate time tracking.

No comment on this product specifically, I'd have to try it. But a lot of us can't just say no thanks to time tracking.

I should also add some people benefit personally from making this effort. I have ADHD and though I hate time tracking, the information it gives me is invaluable. I have a terrible sense of time (honestly almost none) and being notified of intervals and knowing what I did is an excellent aid for keeping on track and improving self awareness.

<comment><USER27> I thought I hated time tracking. Now I get to put in one time entry for my whole shift, but I have to make reports constantly on what I'm doing which is a lot more effort than just entering in chronological order what I did.

Simple time tracking helps keep you honest and tells you things you weren't aware of, in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I already feel plenty annoyed as it is with project managers (and our Jira setup) asking three times a day how things are progressing and how many hours were spent on what. Second only to games, this has got to be the fastest multiplying application category these past few years...

<comment><USER29> would you/your pm's buy a solution that would give this data without your intervention?

<comment><USER28> Me, no. Them, maybe, once they have enough meaningful work during the days to deliver them from the delusion that _repeated daily check-ins_ during 6 week sprints is a valuable chore.</comment></comment></comment>


Mobile Wallet: Cellphone to act as credit card soon  - <AUTHOR> http://www.gadgetdaily.info/2011/01/mobile-wallet-cellphone-to-act-as.html

<comment><USER2> Same story from the BBC, submitted 5 days ago to thunderous silence:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2146951>

I think this is an interesting developement and I'd like to see some discussion of it. I wonder if that earlier submission was simply unlucky with its timing, or if people just don't care.</comment>


Google VP Labels Nokia and Microsoft "Turkeys" - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2011/02/09/google-vp-labels-nokia-and-microsoft-turkeys/

<comment><USER2> If Nokia starts making Windows phones they will be following the trail blazed by Palm. I had the Treo 650. PalmOS. They started making Windows Treos. Strategically I guess Rey figured it would buy them time to update their own OS. It didn't. And the Palm Windows Mobile phones were entirely forgettable. I owned them.</comment>


Up for Grabs: Projects which have curated tasks for new contributors - <AUTHOR> http://up-for-grabs.net/ <comment><USER3> This is excellent, I will add my project soon.

Just a small idea: add section with projects which offer rewards for contributors. That should cover:

* users who will pay for bugfixing

* some sort of small rewards such as bug contests

* scholarship (Google Summer of Code | etc...)

* non financial rewards such as conference passes

<comment><USER4> FYI: [https://www.bountysource.com/](https://www.bountysource.com/)

It would be interesting to see some type of collaboration between similar sites, including:

\- [http://24pullrequests.com/](http://24pullrequests.com/)

\- [https://www.codemontage.com/](https://www.codemontage.com/)

\- [http://www.codetriage.com/](http://www.codetriage.com/)

\- [http://www.lookingforpullrequests.com/](http://www.lookingforpullrequests.com/)

\- [https://bountify.co/](https://bountify.co/)

\- [https://www.bountysource.com/](https://www.bountysource.com/)

\- [http://yourfirstpr.github.io/](http://yourfirstpr.github.io/)

\- [http://socialcoder.org/](http://socialcoder.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Somewhat related: [https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for- beginners](https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm curious about the language culture represented. Of the top three TIOBE languages, there are only 6 projects for C and C++, and none at all for Java.

The site seems oriented towards web and windows.

</comment><comment><USER7> Worthwhile noting that LibreOffice have been doing this for some time now. See:

[https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Easy_Hacks](https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Development/Easy_Hacks)

<comment><USER8> The table that is supposed to list some "random easy hacks" looks to be empty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really like the idea here. Interesting how many of the projects are in .net, I wonder if that's just the authors language or if there really are a disproportionately higher number of .net projects well organized for accepting new contributors.

<comment><USER10> This is likely a historical thing (the curators have a background in .NET and web development, and have lots of contacts in the .NET OSS space) but not something we want to limit ourselves too.

<comment><USER11> I think working with the sites listed in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10837009](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10837009) or even GitHub itself could help expand this idea out even further.

I really wanted openhatch to take off, but it seems it never did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some sort of subscription (a daily digest?) for new tasks in a category would be nice.

<comment><USER8> I second this, however I'd be looking more for a weekly digest, so having some option would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> On a related note, Bugs Ahoy is a similar project for filtering issues in Mozilla projects: [http://www.joshmatthews.net/bugsahoy/](http://www.joshmatthews.net/bugsahoy/) there's 'Simple bugs' facet at the very bottom. E.g. simple and unassigned bugs [http://www.joshmatthews.net/bugsahoy/?unowned=1&simple=1](http://www.joshmatthews.net/bugsahoy/?unowned=1&simple=1)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is essentially exactly what I've been wanting. I really want to start doing some real world work on open source projects, because I feel they'll be great experience. However the projects I'd love to work on (TOR among others) are just so dense and impenetrable that I don't even know how to figure out how to get started.

This will be really valuable, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER15> Also in this space: [https://openhatch.org/](https://openhatch.org/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Great!

We made a similar service for civic tech projects, pulling from a long list of volunteer groups and non-profits. It only shows the "help wanted" labels. [http://www.codeforamerica.org/geeks/civicissues](http://www.codeforamerica.org/geeks/civicissues)

</comment><comment><USER17> I was just about to start a project for this! How did you handle Git's API rate limiting? I was going to be lazy and update my listings every minute with a node scheduler.

<comment><USER18> They're doing client-side requests and caching pretty heavily in local storage: [https://github.com/up-for-grabs/up-for-grabs.net/blob/gh- pag...](https://github.com/up-for-grabs/up-for-grabs.net/blob/gh- pages/javascripts/main.js#L79)

<comment><USER10> And I'd love to move this out to something more flexible (and powerful) - <USER2> the demo [https://github.com/shiftkey/up-for-grabs-api- demo](https://github.com/shiftkey/up-for-grabs-api-demo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If I've never contributed before, How should I go about finding issues I can help with?

It would be cool if there was a filter for difficulty.

<comment><USER20> I hadn't contributed until I found this site a month ago. I looked around in a language I was most comfortable in and then checked out some of the projects. Most of the projects on the list had tags for easy or bite-sized on their issue list.

<comment><USER19> I've been teaching myself python for a while now but wasn't sure where to go once I was done with tutorials.

Hoping to use this to develop some C# skills as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When I was an intern, more or less, God how awful I was, LOL. I would curse my worst enemy with as many amateur helpers as I could find.

I am in charge of the 100,000 lines of code, myself. It is managable by one person.</comment>


ShowHN: Amplifize - <AUTHOR> http://amplifize.com Here's an app I've built focusing on the social elements of Google Reader. There's a small group of us who are using it daily, and I'd love to find a design partner who would be up for really giving it a polish, and seeing if we can capture some of the GReader magic. <comment><USER2> Looks very cool! Sharing features look better than the original google reader, before they removed them. Have you added yourself to these comparison lists going around?</comment>


Bollinger B2 Electric Pickup Truck - <AUTHOR> https://bollingermotors.com/bollinger-b2/ <comment><USER2> Likely a distinct lack of crossover between HN readers and the Land Rover Defender crowd that Bollinger looks like they are targeting. The main use case is for a ranch or large farm property. Probably great for the Caribbean as well. Would buy a Bollinger over a defender in a minute because it's a 30 year+ farm vehicle. Was really excited to read about them.

Could see people balking at the $125k price tag, but at that price point there is already a mass market for dated german sedans and artifacts of imagined british nostalgia supported by a hackneyed movie franchise. Something useful and durable would be a relief.

<comment><USER3> why would you buy this over a 4runner or tacoma for a large farm property? (or the new defender)

i am curious and kind of skeptical that electric vehicles will ever get the longevity of combustion engine toyotas and such, given the nascent battery technology. am i wrong? will a Model S outlast a Subaru?

<comment><USER4> Electric motors are robust and can last decades. The battery will fade but can be replaced.

The real issue is the software and electronics which all modern cars are suffering from. It's becoming increasingly difficult to own them out of warranty when they're all digital and need complex and proprietary software to keep running.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Sounds like a use case for multiple distribution venues, like an added hard media option.

That is: the vehicle interface needn't change but for a software upgrade that allows complete firmware upgrades through that interface from an "injection", so to speak when the vehicle becomes... "outdated" or "obsolete".

I understand the first problem with this is all kinds of ugly hacks (breaking existing traffic regulations) a malicious attack vector... but it seems like if you had the option to fix a problem by buying an existing patch for a used vehicle that never had it applied before you bought it [and after the vehicle had been discontinued] then you'd have something of a continuance model at least.

I'm sure there are other holes in that thought, but I think it should be workable technologically—my concern would be the business end that decides it's detrimental to profit margins and whatever exponential growth may have been promised. (Ie: "they should just buy a new car")

Your comment is the first time I've ever heard this very real problem. I'm sure it's been promoted before and I'm curious to know how you came to it, and how it differs from other modern vehicles that also use systems-critical software.

<comment><USER4> It's not unique to Tesla. All modern cars have connectors which over-the-air updates just ride on top of. The issue is manufacturers not creating updates and limiting access with proprietary equipment for delivering those updates. This is all done to force consumers to buy new or only go to the manufacturer for repairs (for as long as they're offered). They won't even sell parts, tools or schematics for you to even attempt it on your own and are starting to cut out independent shops too.

This issue is widespread in other industries from farm equipment to consumer electronics. Mechanical components are easily reverse engineered and have tons of aftermarket and independent shops, but this is magnitudes harder with digital devices and software, especially without access to any of the original equipment and diagrams. It's like trying to rebuild a computer chip by looking at nothing but the motherboard it's placed on. Practically impossible.

Consumers want a "right to repair" (which is the name for a lot of the legal bills pushing for access) but it's unfortunately not getting much political support due to lobbying. For more info, check out Rich Rebuilds [1] who repairs salvaged Tesla's and is starting his own independent shop. There's also Louis Rossman [2] who repairs Apple devices and has updates on the recent legislation for personal devices.

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA)

2\. [https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup](https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like that it has a very "DIY" aesthetic, almost like a custom vehicle, and there's nothing about the design that screams "I'm an EV!" unlike some of the other EVs out there. The square design would blend in with other vehicles from the 70s.

The simple dashboard (like a lot of custom cars, e.g. [http://www.fastlanerodshop.com/George34ford/George34ford_das...](http://www.fastlanerodshop.com/George34ford/George34ford_dash.htm) ) with an actual analogue speedometer is nice too. I wonder if it's mechanically driven and thus wouldn't even need the truck to be "on" to work. Hopefully the whole vehicle is as serviceable as it looks --- the lack of any huge touchscreen is a good sign that there's probably not a DRM-encrusted computer controlling everything, although I doubt it has "true old-school" analog motor electronics either.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Tesla Cybertruck and this are built by people who don't drive pickups and don't know why people really drive pickups. $125k and can only tow half of what a $30k F-150 can? For real?

Half tons by the 2021 model year will be pushing 15,000 lbs. towing capacity. The last 5 years have seen almost a 50% increase. The market has responded really well. People want a half ton (ride characteristics and price) that can tow like a 3/4 ton.

<comment><USER7> If you tow that much with a half ton it's not ideal (or even smart), because even though it _can_ tow that much it's not particularly good at it. I own a vehicle that can tow 11,000lbs in a half ton format and it's nothing when compared to towing with a similar model 3/4 ton variant. 1/2 ton trucks are designed for the occasional tow of recreational vehicles and light duty trailers. I would _never_ tow anything over 10k lbs even though my vehicle was rated at it. A half ton towing 6-7k lbs is a heavy load and it's getting a bit ridiculous that auto manufacturers are putting ideas in people's heads that 1/2 ton trucks are direct replacements for a 3/4 or full ton vehicle. Suspension, transmission and drivetrain in a half ton are designed first and foremost for comfort these days. They are not full time tow vehicles and they don't tow like 3/4 ton trucks. At some point the NHTSA is going to need to step in and put limits on what 1/2 tons are limited to towing because it's becoming dangerous. For those who don't know the rating is mostly the GVWR of the truck. In simple terms that means the GVWR of a 3/4 ton truck is 1.5x that of a 1/2 ton truck. That is a huge difference and for those who have done a lot of towing in their lives it's night and day in terms of tow performance all around. Acceleration, braking, sway control, visibility, handling under load, etc.

<comment><USER6> Right, so I assume that an F-150 that's rated for 14,000 lbs towing a 6,000 lb camper is safe. I do this for about 15,000 miles a year. I've had no problems, but I wouldn't want to tow much heavier of a load.

Which makes me wonder how much is that Tesla (that at the lowest end is rated for 7,000 lbs) actually safe to tow? I'm going to guess it's a lot less than 7,000 lbs.

And the higher-end models just have more pulling power, and I guess they weigh a bit more due to the battery.

<comment><USER8> I think the limiting factor for towing in EVs is just the ability to reject heat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Am I the only one who notices that you can't throw a board in the bed without strapping it because all of the modern trucks have 6 ft beds instead of 8 ft?

<comment> frosted-flakes The Bollinger has a pass-through opening through the cab (between the seats) and into the front cargo area under the hood. Obviously you can't fit a whole skid of 2x4s in there, but you can fit some really long stuff that pickup trucks otherwise can't really handle.

Edit: the linked page says it can fit 40 2x4s through the pass-through, and 72 sheets of half-inch plywood when the rear seats are removed. Also, with the tailgate down, it can carry 19' material fully supported.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Only twice as much as the top of the line Tesla Cybertruck.

<comment><USER11> Not to mention less range and less towing capacity.

But to be fair, it is a farm truck not for running kids to school. It has quite a bit more payload capacity (3500 vs 5000 lbs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not a mechanical engineer by any means.

But all aluminium body in that squary shape? That seems like asking to be dented. I wonder what aluminium alloy they use (and how thick it is).

Can any real mechanical engineer comment on that?

<comment><USER13> I'm no MechE or machinist, but I do bang out parts on a mill / lathe on a regular basis, and I've noticed a huge disconnect between the shop attitude towards Steel / Aluminum / Titanium and the public attitude.

==== In the Shop ====

Aluminum is the "newbie" metal: cheap, light, soft, weak, easy (to machine, to protect from corrosion).

Steel is the "adult" metal: strong and resilient, but heavy and requires more care to machine, heat treat, and protect from corrosion.

Titanium is the "pro" metal: as strong as steel _and_ as light as aluminum. Expensive and difficult to machine, though.

DISCLAIMER: These are all gigantic simplifications. Alloy, heat treatment, mass/volume denominators, coatings, geometry, and economic considerations can absolutely upset this ordering.

==== In Public ====

Aluminum is the space age advanced metal.

Steel is obsolete.

Titanium is Aluminum.

<comment><USER14> > Titanium is Aluminum.

I thought the public view of titanium was similar to adamantium or unobtanium. It's not an option because it's too expensive to use in a "normal" car. It's something that gets used in 100k+ supercars and formula 1 cars.

<comment><USER13> I suspect anyone into cars, bikes, or aircraft is aware of titanium's status as a paragon material, but the general public is less informed than that. I regularly see people miss the implication of an Al -> Ti or Ti -> Al material substitution and I semi-regularly see Al and Ti confused outright. It seems almost sacrilegious to someone in-the-know, but most people just don't seem to know or care. As far as they are concerned, aluminum is titanium is aluminum is titanium. Shrug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's too bad we won't see a new electric light pickup (i.e. Ranger, Dakota) with a 7 foot bed anytime soon. Hopefully the conversion market will catch up.

</comment><comment><USER16> $125,000

<comment><USER17> But on the plus side you can _joust with telephone poles_ with this thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The old school hummer look is back, I suppose

</comment><comment><USER19> How are these things "most capable" but missing essentials like USB-C socket (at least 50W)?

<comment><USER20> I think if I was spending this much on a truck, I'd rather they provided 110/220V AC rather than a USB-C socket. Much wider capability and compatibility.

<comment><USER19> Why not both?:)

<comment><USER20> Because USB standards progress so rapidly and standard AC sockets don't. There's also the durability issue. A standard AC socket is easy to wire/replace, a USB socket isn't.

<comment><USER19> USB-A has been around well over 20 years and C will likely to stay more. Sure the car will last way longer, but there are tons of much more gimmicky stuff being added (most obvious one is infotainment that will be obsolete in 3 years).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> That's a lot of frunk.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder how they can copy Land Rover like that and get away with it.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think this might be a close second in ugliness to the Tesla Truck. Why can't have an electric Toyota Tacoma? Or an F150 or a Chevy Colorado?

<comment><USER24> Check out the Rivian, it's a great looking electric truck in my opinion.

[https://rivian.com/](https://rivian.com/)

<comment><USER25> Great looking - everything but the cutesy front headlights.

I'd slightly prefer a blacked out Tesla truck to that. The main problem with the front/back of the Cybertruck is the it's very flat and plain where even a licence plate or name decal would make it look better. But I have a feeling it will look better in person than online.

<comment><USER26> That will be the the Tesla F-117 Truck, with radar absorbing vantablack paint

<comment><USER20> While I did snicker at the thought of a Vantablack'ed Cybertruck, I think it'd be a dangerous vehicle to have on the roads - your visibility would be so low.

<comment><USER25> It'd be dangerous for self driving cars because LIDAR has trouble picking up deep black colours since it doesn't reflect back any light.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> And people said the Cybertruck was ugly...

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting how dated it looks after the Tesla announcement, ugly as the Cybertruck is. Wheels, door panels, steering wheel, everything looks a bit too traditional. Maybe that was one of their goals, but will be a shame if it ends up driving healthy competitors out of business.</comment>