Tesla's Model S P85D Scores 103 Out of 100 on Consumer Reports' Ratings System - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/27/teslas-model-s-p85d-just-broke-consumer-reports-ratings-system-scoring-103-out-of-100/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> This is offtopic but the video of peoples reaction using the 'insane' button in the Model S P85D was some really great marketing for Tesla:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpaLgF1uLB8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpaLgF1uLB8)

The feature is a novelty but it makes for great social media bait. I never share links about cars with family/friends but I felt compelled to this time. It's entertaining because the car is completely silent while it pins them back in the seat - and people are having very honest reactions to the experience.

<comment><USER3> One thing that bugs me about that video - are they really going 60-70 mph on normal city streets?

<comment><USER4> Also, that kid in the back seat should at least be in a booster seat. The seat belt is way too high on him.

<comment><USER5> He is fine.

It is identically positioned on both him and the teenage girl sitting next to him. Which should hint that it is correctly positioned.

But to get specific, a seatbelt is incorrectly positioned when the lap strap goes across a child's belly OR the shoulder strap doesn't cross their collar bone. Like this: [http://i.imgur.com/Zu9pmBv.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/Zu9pmBv.jpg)

In this video the boy (or girl) didn't violate either of those guidelines, therefore he does not require a booster seat.

I wouldn't go much smaller than he is without one however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> ""They have an interesting rating system. It ends up representing the fact that all this performance and fuel efficiency comes out of a car that can seat 7 people. The variant that does 0-60 quicker and gives you AWD gives you better energy consumption. Things like these are what blew up their scale.""

A few weeks ago (a month ago ?) BMW released the spec sheet / announcement for the new 7 series. And it's just sad.

I'm not even sure who it is for ... people who don't use the Internet ? People who don't read news ? You've got a car that is substantially better in almost every conceivable category (it generates all wheel drive with two different motors, for instance) ... and the press release for the 7 series is going on and on about how advanced their new engine is and bragging about their (laughable, in light of the model S) 0-60 time.

Basically it's 20 pages of "blah blah not electric blah blah". It's painful to look at.

OBLIGATORY: Not a huge Model S fan, at least in terms of size (not really a full sized four door) and interior appointment (which is amazingly sparse and devoid of options compared to 7/A8/S) ... and further, would much prefer a 7 series or Panamera on a fully-electric platform. But we don't have that, so I guess we have to settle for "the best car we've ever tested".[1]

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/27/teslas-p85d-is-the-best- car-c...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/27/teslas-p85d-is-the-best-car-consumer- reports-has-ever-tested.html)

<comment><USER7> Having driven both a 7 Series and a Model S, I'll take the BMW any day. More comfortable, better handling, looks better, doesn't have a huge iPad in the dashboard, and allows road trips with far less planning needed. It's nice that the tesla has insane acceleration, but in practice that's not super useful. And gas is a small enough part of my budget that it's not material so that isn't really a factor.

<comment><USER8> "doesn't have a huge iPad in the dashboard"

Why is this a bad thing?

<comment><USER9> When it comes to in-car controls, you want to be able to use them without taking your eyes off the road. To this end, knobs that you can grasp for and feel the current setting are great. Knobs without a tactile indication of the current setting are OK, as you can find them without looking and only glance down to see that you are selecting the appropriate setting. Buttons are worse because you have to glance down to find them, but once you do you should be able to use them and know that the input was registered through the tactile feedback.

Touchscreens, on the other hand, are just bad for this. You have to look at them the entire time you're operating them, or else your hand might change position and not press what you intended to press. You also need to look at the screen to see that your press registered what you wanted to do. All of this looking at the screen means your eyes aren't on the road where they belong.

<comment><USER5> I have to say I agree.

We have a car made in 2000, it has knobs and dials for everything, you can configure the AC/heat completely without looking at it after some familiarity with the controls. The radio you can configure the station and volume without looking.

We also own a Prius made in 2014. They've either turned everything into a flat button, or worse it requires the touch screen to configure. And while the Prius does many more things than the 2000 car, the 2000 remains more configurable while driving by a mile.

The Prius largely tries to not have you configure the AC/heat at all while driving by having an automatic mode and you can set the target temp', but this completely ignores other scenarios where people want to be hit with hot/cold and don't care what the actual temp is, or that the temp doesn't measure the sun hitting you on your bare arm constantly making you feel hotter than you actually are.

Ultimately cars were better ergonomically designed pre-touchscreen, when they did less. Maybe in a few years I'll be able to voice control the AC/heat, but until then it is a step backwards.

<comment><USER10> "this completely ignores other scenarios where people want to be hit with hot/cold and don't care what the actual temp is, or that the temp doesn't measure the sun hitting you on your bare arm constantly making you feel hotter than you actually are."

Exactly! I hate the ubiquity of automatic climate control systems these days. Everyone that has a car equipped with one just uses the "set point" knob like regular manual controls. It's full cold, full hot, or off with "in-between" settings managed via fan speed. They don't work for the reason you've stated even when used "properly".

I've also noticed that most systems refuse to switch off the A/C compressor unless you choose a set point several degrees above ambient. It's a waste of gas, especially when it's 68-70F with low humidity outside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just my 2 cents: I've driven both a P85D and a 2014 Porsche 911 4S cabriolet fairly extensively. Guess which one I decided to buy?

The Porsche. These might not be two cars that are commonly cross-shopped, and the Tesla does beat the Porsche to 60 mph. Still, the Porsche was clearly the winner in just about every other way in my estimation. Anyone else have a similar experience?

<comment><USER12> Not sure how the Porsche was the winner in every way? Going from point A->B (work commute), is your foot hard on the pedal every day? Can you even have your foot all the way down (traffic)? Tesla wins by far in terms of energy- efficiency, luxury, capacity, and just overall being more useful than the Porsche (and still being fun to drive). The only minus is the price tag. But Porsches aren't cheap either. But yeah I understand, any true racing enthusiast would probably choose a Porsche over a Tesla.

<comment><USER13> >Tesla wins by far in terms of...luxury

Except it doesn't. One of the biggest complaints about the Model S is that its interior belongs in a specced-up Accord, not an S-class competitor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What I'd really like to see, and Tesla is already beginning to do it, is modular, upgrade-able cars.

Like, a new engine, better in-car entertainment, better sound system, seat- heating, cruise control, distance control, semi/full automatic driving... if I could e.g. buy a stripped down Tesla as a student which I can then (given, of course, I don't crash it) upgrade over its lifetime as I put some money aside, instead of having to buy an entirely new car when the old one is still perfectly functioning.

<comment><USER15> This is actually a clever marketing trick by Elon Musk. You cannot upgrade a Roadster, and you cannot upgrade the P70 models either.

Tesla has been pretty unclear about their modularity and upgrades. Be careful when reading marketing material: these marketing slides open your imagination but aren't necessarily filled with the truth. They've kept things vague to help stir our imaginations... but don't go dropping $70,000 on vague promises.

When Tesla starts actually making modular cars, we'll know the details. Until then, treat these promises as marketing and/or vaporware. I'm sure Elon Musk is going to push his company to actually deliver on his promises, but sometimes engineers can only do so much.

<comment><USER16> Actually, Tesla does plan on shipping an upgrade to existing Roadsters. It'll be expensive and probably later than claimed, but there you have it:

[http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/roadster-30](http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/roadster-30)

[http://gas2.org/2015/05/05/340-mile-tesla-roadster- upgrade-d...](http://gas2.org/2015/05/05/340-mile-tesla-roadster-upgrade-due- out-in-august/)

I agree with your comment that it's easy to fantasize about upgrades that will never happen. Early Model S cars lack the hardware for driving assistance, and my friends who think they know about such things predict that additional computer power will be needed to achieve all that Elon is predicting for self- driving.

A better battery pack for all Model S cars, on the other hand, is likely to eventually show up. All existing cars can be upgraded to the 90 KWh battery, but Tesla is suggesting that everyone is better off waiting for a more significant upgrade later in your battery's life.

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the information.

When specifics come out, I think its sane to trust them. The political fall out if Roadsters upgrades aren't delivered is too great.

> Early Model S cars lack the hardware for driving assistance, and my friends > who think they know about such things predict that additional computer power > will be needed to achieve all that Elon is predicting for self-driving.

Yeah, this is the danger I'm trying to warn against. It isn't necessarily that Elon Musk or Tesla is "lying" to people, they're just vague about upgrade packages. So dreamers begin to dream and some misunderstandings may occur.

Its best to wait for specifics, like that Roadster info you've linked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How can you exceed your max value? This has always bothered me, its pretty much admitting "We kinda pull numbers out of our butts." When I see this in other media, like movies or games, it seems to be a direct response to hype or personal politics. Maybe CR is overly green and wants to promote EV's? Reminds me of when Obama got a Nobel Peace prize for things he will do in the future.

Also, the Simpsons did it first:

Tralawney: Listen, we've been meaning to have a talk with you about your reviews. Everything's a rave! Nine thumbs up, what the hell is that?

Homer: I've given out my share of bad reviews

Beaumont: Oh, the only bad review you gave was to a slice of pizza you found under the couch.

Homer: It lost some points because it had a Hot Wheel on it.

<comment><USER18> I think people are making too big of a deal about scoring greater than the "maximum."

It's pretty clear that they came up with some arbitrary scoring system where each aspect of the car gets some number of points. There's nothing wrong with that, any rating is going to be arbitrary to some degree. They then arranged the scales such that whatever they saw as a good car would come close to 100, because 100 seems like a nice number.

Then they test a car with a combination of attributes they never expected, and it exceeds 100. 100 isn't the _actual_ maximum, it's just what they thought would be the top score from their system. Turns out that if you throw a car at their system that is extremely efficient _and_ powerful _and_ seats lots of people, the numbers go higher.

<comment><USER19> Similar issue with the "Coefficient of Performance" in heating and cooling[1], which is the ratio of "energy extracted" to "energy consumed". Since you're just moving energy around, this value can easily be greater than 100% -- no violation of the laws of thermodynamics! 100% is just as arbitrary a value on this scale. .

However, there's still always a relevant maximum that you should measure relative to, and refrigerators have a theoretical maximum. The maximum ("Carnot") efficiency is the ratio of the higher (absolute) temperature to the temperature difference. For room temperature to freezing, that would be ~300/27 = 11.1 = 1100%.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coefficient_of_performance)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I get that the Tesla is awesome, but it seems pretty frigging ridiculous that to give a car 103 out of 100 when it only has a range of 200 miles.

<comment><USER21> How ridiculous would it be for a car company to give you a lifetime unlimited supply of gasoline along with the purchase of your car? Absolutely ridiculous. Guess what? That's exactly what Tesla does. [http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger](http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger)

Unlike gas cars, you start off with 200 miles of range EVERY MORNING since you charge overnight. Most Americans also only drive an average of 40 miles a day. And for those long trips, you have Superchargers.

<comment><USER20> How ridiculous would it be for a car company to give you a lifetime unlimited supply of gasoline - but you have to wait in line 30 minutes for it every time. And oh by the way, it's an hour from your house, and you'll use a third of a tank getting there and back. And there's only like 200 stations total worldwide. So... awesome, right? Oh, and we built the cost of those stations into the car, so it's not _REALLY_ free.

 _yawn_

<comment><USER16> You don't have to "wait in line 30 minutes for it every time". Please: make your point without exaggerating.

<comment><USER20> The recharge takes 30 minutes...

>What should I do if all Supercharger stalls are occupied when I arrive? Check to see if current users have left contact information on their dashboard and give them a call. Most customers charge for 20 to 40 minutes.

[http://www.teslamotors.com/support/supercharging](http://www.teslamotors.com/support/supercharging)

<comment><USER16> It is not the case that you have to "wait in line 30 minutes for it every time". I've waited in line for 5 minutes, twice, out of the couple of dozen times I've supercharged. The other times there was a free charger when I arrived.

<comment><USER20> If you waited 5 minutes, you were at 3/4 of a charge. Physics dictate how fast you can charge a battery, and it isn't faster than 30 minutes if you're at 1/4 or less.

I can only ask: why would you bother recharging at 3/4 of a charge? I've literally never in my life stopped to top off my tank at 3/4 of a tank of gasoline.

<comment><USER16> "Wait in line" means I'm unable to get to a charger because they're all occupied by other cars. That explains why your comments are so confusing.

<comment><USER20> Filling up my gas tank takes roughly 90 seconds. The only equivalent is "waiting in line". There wouldn't ever be a circumstance in which it would take 30 minutes to fill my tank.

<comment><USER16> The words "wait in line" mean something particular, and it isn't how you're using them. I agree that people charging Teslas at SuperChargers often spend 30 minutes charging. They do not "wait in line" to do so, unless all the chargers are full when they arrive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That is frankly ridiculous.

Tesla's previous car getting 99/100 (which never happened before) wasn't enough, so now they push 103/100?

I understand that its a great car, but if the consumer report scale is out of 100, then it should stay out of 100. Pushing their scale beyond the boundary causes a "Spinal tap" situation and I fail to take the review seriously anymore.

It goes up to 11 belongs in comedy movies, not serious reviews.

<comment><USER22> Blame TechCrunch for the blogspammy headline. The original Consumer Reports review states clearly that it scored a 103 based on their existing framework, which they adjusted in lieu of that fact.

| In rating it, however, we faced a quandary: The Tesla initially scored 103 in the Consumer Reports' Ratings system, which by definition doesn't go past 100. The car set a new benchmark, so we had to make changes to our scoring to account for it. Those changes didn't affect the scores of other cars.

[http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/tesla-model- s-p85d-b...](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/tesla-model- s-p85d-breaks-consumer-reports-ratings-system.htm)

<comment><USER23> They might think about future-proofing their rating system while they're tweaking it. By scoring it 100 they have calibrated the P85D as the new "perfect", even while admitting "it has imperfections." What will its score be when future, better cars come along and they have to recalibrate those to 100?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> what a bullshit report. I mean I like tesla but this report starts with bullshit and ends with bullshit.

103/100 ? 200 mile range?

<comment><USER25> In highschool, grade 11 computer science I got 101% end of year grade; the average of the class was 100%: the person who got 99% was barely in class however completed their assignments, and I got 101% because I would quickly finish my assignments and then was happy and excited to help others if they were running into trouble. I quite wish my other classes were scored that way as well... TL;DR There's nothing wrong giving credit where credit is due.

<comment><USER26> /r/iamverysmart

<comment><USER25> Had nothing to do with smarts, I just had been using computers and started to teach myself programming at 11 years old.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Did consumer reports review a Model S 70D? I would think that would be a more practical car for consumer reports to review.

<comment><USER28> I guess. I mean they're both incredibly small niche vehicle volumes that it seems a bit strange to split hairs on which model.

<comment><USER29> Well the P85D costs $30k (over 50%) more so for your average wealthy person the P70D looks much more reasonable.

<comment><USER18> Don't forget that they now offer a plain 70 in rear wheel drive configuration, which knocks off another $5,000.

Teslas aren't cheap by any means, but there are a lot of people who could afford something in the 70-85D range but not a P85D.

On the other hand, the only real difference between a P85D and an 85D is acceleration, so I don't think there's much need to do a separate review just for the lower-end cars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So did they take affordability into account?

<comment><USER15> They took neither affordability nor reliability into account. Details here: [http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/tesla-model- s-p85d-b...](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars/tesla-model- s-p85d-breaks-consumer-reports-ratings-system.htm)

<comment><USER31> ... which are the two most important things that I care about. I which there was a rating system that looked at these - especially over the long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Looks like all the news has overloaded consumerreports.org. And I need a new clothing dryer!

[http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/consumerreports.org.html](http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/consumerreports.org.html)

</comment><comment><USER33> Does this Tesla S still overheat on a lap of Nürburgring?

<comment><USER12> yes probably, but how often are you taking your family sedan for a lap around the Nürburgring?</comment></comment>


Generating electricity from a balloon - <AUTHOR> http://greenwombat.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/11/05/generating-electricity-from-a-balloon/ <comment><USER3> It's an interesting idea: instead of making large sheets of solar cells, make a small one and gather the light from a large area and send it to the cell.

And the real smart idea is the mirror - a simple balloon.

But, I'm not so sure solar cells exist that can handle that much power. Yes you can send them more sun - but can they handle it? I think they can't - <USER2> least if they can, they saturate, so no matter how much more light you send their power is capped.

And indeed, at the very end they mention that the solar cells they need don't exist.

</comment><comment><USER4> My party balloons deflate in a day. What keeps theirs from doing the same?

Also there could be some durability problems. Just a thought.

<comment><USER3> > My party balloons deflate in a day. What keeps theirs from doing the same?

That's because they have helium in them (so they float). Put air in and they will not deflate.

> Also there could be some durability problems.

Mylar is a really strong material actually. I think they use it to insulate satellites.

<comment><USER4> OK about the helium, but the air will still leak if the pressure inside is higher. Also as the air inside heats and cools the balloon will change shape. Maybe their system is so robust or cheap that these effects don't matter.</comment></comment></comment>


David Miranda's detention was entirely legitimate - <AUTHOR> http://www.kernelmag.com/comment/column/4585/david-mirandas-detention-was-entirely-legitimate/ <comment><USER2> Milo makes some reasonable points, particularly concerning the somewhat disingenuous tone of recent Guardian reporting.

However, they are a party to this dispute, and whilst the lack of professionalism is disappointing, it is quite understandable.

One can easily understand the imperative to make their coverage as compelling as possible; to tell their side of the story as strongly and as forcefully as they possibly can; to spread the message far and wide. There is no illusion of impartiality to be maintained here.

One can also understand (and feel some sympathy for) the embattled security services, unable to respond in any meaningful way whilst they endure a barrage of criticism from all quarters. Notwithstanding a small number of shameful episodes, they have largely acted with professionalism and restraint.

However, these shameful episodes, together with increasing partisanship in the media coverage leads me to worry that the level of professionalism so far exhibited by all parties is being gradually and inexorably eroded by partisanship and jingoism.*

The debate on digital surveillance (in all it's forms) is too serious an issue to be sidetracked by entrenched partisanship.

Yes, it is an important issue, and yes, we still need to rope in as many debate participants as possible, and yes, that means being shrill and controversial on occasion. However, there are enough sensible, actively involved people for us to start talking about what to do next.

* (I count myself as a guilty party when it comes to shrill and partisan commentary).

</comment><comment><USER3> He was suspected of carrying sensitive material, which apparently couldn't be found. The search and interviews apparently lasted 9 hours to the minute according to reports and his detention wasn't extended. In my book: if there would have been something, they would have made it stick. Now they couldn't and apparently out of spite they detained him for 9 hours to the minute while grilling him about the actions of his partner.

John Bull and Uncle Sam have got another blackish eye publicitywise from this affair. There may be a lot of frustration about this Snowden fall-out in Intel circles, but really, let it rest for a while. Sit still while you're being shorn, as any PR person can tell you.

</comment><comment><USER4> While IANAL, my understanding is that the laws under which he was detained were intended for stopping actual terrorist threats; espionage - even if that's what we want to call this - is not terrorism, and I don't think anyone has asserted that Miranda has any involvement with any such plots.

I agree that the "they're just doing this to hurt me" spin Greenwald put forward is likely inaccurate - if Miranda was indeed moving documents (or it looked sufficiently like that from the outside) then claims that the authorities are dragging him into this to hurt Greenwald are flat out wrong - but that isn't the same thing as the detention being "entirely legitimate."</comment>


Show HN: Can I Wear Shorts Today? - <AUTHOR> http://shorts.today A real world application of some interesting ML concepts. You can check out the Git repo here: https://github.com/thatjpcsguy/shorts <comment><USER2> 21 and I can't Wear Shorts?

<comment><USER3> Don't know about you, but that's pretty cold for me!</comment></comment>


Louisiana's bold bid to privatize schools - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/01/us-education-vouchers-idUSL1E8H10AG20120601

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm a liberal democrat, but I consider myself pro-anything that will give more kids a leg up in the world, even if it doesn't fit with the orthodoxy of my party. But this is just such a poorly designed law...

</comment><comment><USER2> Whenever I see something like this, I have a sneaking suspicion that it's just a way to teach creationism (or even young earth biblical creationism) in schools. Or at least to avoid teaching anything to do with evolution.</comment>


Who Needs Flash? New WebGL And HTML5 Browser Game Sets Tron's Light Cycles In 3D - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/06/who-needs-flash-new-webgl-and-html5-browser-game-sets-trons-light-cycles-in-3d/ <comment><USER2> This is definitively a great game. New twist on the old light cycle game.

As far as I know, molehill, adobe's 3D engine is not yet released so I don't think it's fair to talk about WebGL vs Flash yet. We will have to see if molehill can solve some of the issues that WebGL is dealing with (old cards, missing opengl drivers, inconsistent features available on GPU preventing the use of important extensions ...) My bet is it won't have more luck without resorting to software rendering in many cases.</comment>


Show HN: We completely rebuilt our Travel Discovery Engine - <AUTHOR> https://destigogo.com/letsgo <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys!

For the past 6 months my brother and I have been rebuilding our travel tool,

which now finds the best travel deals to anywhere in the world - instantly.

We'd really appreciate your feedback!

Compared to first version, DESTIGOGO 2.0 contains a lot of innovations - including:

\- Flexible date range search

\- Advanced 'Travel Theme' filtering options

\- Compare Flights from all airports near you

\- Bucketlist feature to save destinations for later

\- Instagram integration

\- 2.000+ Destinations

\- Not only big 'Airport Cities', but smaller villages with an airport nearby as well

\- Flights integration in cooperation with Skyscanner

\- Accommodation integration in cooperation with Booking.com

We are curious about what you guys think and happy to answer any questions you have!

</comment><comment><USER2> Sounds familiar, there are several use cases to use DESTIGOGO, very excited to here what everybody thinks about it!?

</comment><comment><USER3> Use it whenever I'm bored in my hometown and I want an easy weekend gateway

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice! That's exactly the use case we had in mind rebuilding it :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> heart Destigogo!

<comment><AUTHOR> <3</comment></comment>


How do you know a 175% Price pump is coming, 1 hour in Advance - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@shakks/how-do-you-know-a-175-price-pump-is-coming-1-hour-in-advance-63bf25ba7dcc <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I reversed engineered yesterdays FUEL token price pump and tried to find if there was a way to know about it in advance and guess what there was a few.

Hope you like the post and let me know what you think.</comment>


Ask HN: Did you switch from Dropbox to Google Drive? - <AUTHOR>

1. Yes or no 2. Do you pay money for this service or are you a free user? <comment><USER2> I'm a Dropbox user with 5gb of space and while I have installed Google Drive, I see no real reason to switch from Dropbox. First I can earn more space on Dropbox if needed with more referrals and second Google doesn't have an iOS app available at launch (however it's coming soon).

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. I have both installed. Wanted to check out Google Drive but not necessarily switch. I rarely use Dropbox as it is.

2\. Between the two, currently Dropbox has more value for me both in terms of overall storage space and in terms of users I have shared folders with.

3\. Free on both. I haven't had a need to upgrade to the paid version yet due to limited need to use the service. Possibly later if I ever end up needing more space.

</comment><comment><USER4> No. Google Drive never gave me a good reason to switch. Fundamentally, Google Drive is the same as Dropbox, with the only benefits being increased storage and integration with Google Docs. To me, it would require a considerably better feature set for me to switch platforms

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. No - what with all those folders I'm sharing with other DB users - I'd have to persuade them to switch too; what am I, Google's marketing team? Not. 2. Free user, about 5GB space in total. Also at Google Drive: iPhone app "coming soon", Linux app "nowhere in sight".

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great point. I was able to switch because I don't have many shared folders. I am a paid user and the main reason I switched was to get a lower price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a dropbox account but I really rarely use it so no I did not switch or even try Google Drive since it's not really useful for me. I have a lot of stuff in Google Docs though, I don't know if it gets automatically sent to my Drive or something.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was considering it until I realized how much CPU GDrive was taking on my Mac: [http://johnmarshall4.tumblr.com/post/21864353801/gdrive- suck...](http://johnmarshall4.tumblr.com/post/21864353801/gdrive-sucks-cpu-on- macs)

</comment><comment><USER8> I signed up for Google Drive, but only as a formality - Dropbox serves my needs well and has a much nicer interface, and doesn't have an awful privacy/data ownership policy.

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh man I'm thinking about SkyDrive as I have 25GB for free...

I'm switching to the first one to implement webhooks for file updates.

<comment><USER10> webhooks/streaming api for changes would be awesome!

skydrive: tried it for 10 minutes, could'nt find versioning/revert support => deleted

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why switch? Use both!

</comment><comment><USER12> Nope, no switch. Dropbox free user with 12Gb of space.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to everybody who answered my question!

</comment><comment><USER13> I haven't switched, but I am giving it serious thought.

It probably matters that I haven't downloaded the Google Drive client yet, but on the basis of cost alone, Google Drive is substantially cheaper.

That said, I love Dropbox (which is the reason I haven't switched _yet_ ), but the features they seem to be rolling out aren't particularly appealing to me. I just really want somewhere to store my files.

Dropbox also has the advantage of being the client I use to share files with a variety of people already and I'm honestly not sure if I downgraded to the free plan, that I could keep up with all those fileshares. I'll have to look and see where the cap is implemented.

If I have a 2Gb plan, and a paid user shares a 3Gb folder with me, do I have to upgrade to see/use it?

<comment><USER5> As far as my experience goes, the answer is "yes" for Dropbox - your account will show "1 GB over quota" (and syncing will stop) in this case, as shared folders count toward the quota both for you and the person who shared it with you. Many moons ago, Dropbox promised this will be changed, but it has been on hiatus ever since (my guess is on slightly larger profits and drastically simpler quota accounting).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I did not for following reasons.

1\. I do not want to keep installing software on my system especially on my office computer.

Why not Google came out with a G Drive similar to Amazon where you do not have to install anything but still can upload and access all files?

2\. And Google is late to the game. I have already 5 GB from Amazon and 5 GB from Dropbox and that will be enough for me for a while.</comment>


Internship at a startup - <AUTHOR>

I am a masters student in CS and a ex-Yahoo. I have a considerable experience launching web 2.0 websites. I would be interested in a summer internship at a VC backed startup. Please shoot me a mail at firstname.lastname@example.com, if you have an open positions. Thanks. <comment><USER2> Why would a start-up make the effort of contacting you if you don't make the effort of contacting them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, I don't know what the interesting startups that are hiring for the summer at this point. Since I have good credentials, I figured this is a place to help them find me. Is there a way to find companies that are hiring for the summer?

<comment><USER2> Startuply, perhaps, or other start-up job sites? There's a few others but that's the main one I know of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Out of curiosity, why is it that you're looking for an _internship_? Is your previous experience not related to development? Or is it simply the timing issue, that you don't feel you could find a non-internship opportunity given your narrow window of 2-3 months to work?

<comment><AUTHOR> I need an internship for immigration issues. Basically, I am a student currently, and it's easier to go in and out of the country if I have a F1 visa as opposed to an OPT. Since, I plan to make a couple of trips in and out of the country, having an internship makes things a lot easier for me at this point. You can checkout my resume to look at my programming experience.</comment></comment>


What A CEO Does - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/08/what-a-ceo-does.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AVc+%28A+VC%29 <comment><USER2> Already on the homepage - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1646070></comment>


Turtl: open source, client-side encrypted note taking - <AUTHOR> https://turtl.it/

<comment><USER2> Nice. I've been looking for something similar to this, so just begun poking around the source, looks clean & well written. Will submit bugs for anything I find</comment>


Pitfalls on the road from traditional project management to Agile/Scrum - <AUTHOR> http://vincedasta.com/p/pitfalls-on-the-road-from-traditional-project-management-to-scrum/ <comment><USER3> "Unfortunately, many organizations trying to be "Agile" struggle or fail because of a simple reason- they don't grasp the fundamental differences between strict TPM by the book, what they are actually doing in practice that causes projects to fail to deliver value, and how Agile/Scrum is different from the two." \--> Truth

<comment><USER4> Thanks! Would love to hear any other thoughts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> On somewhat aside, While it's true that most "Traditional Project Management" implies waterfall, it's not quite true that "Water can't flow up the waterwall". At least for the last few editions, PMBOOK explicitly indicated that planning, execution, and monitoring are iterative and feed into each other.

There needs to be, and is, more to Agile than just the idea that you can (re-)plan during execution - no sane traditional/waterfall framework would insist on an unalterable "steady as she goes". There's always the urge to learn and improve from execution experience as early as possible.

To Article's point then, if your organization's issue is that you're not learning or implementing lessons, TPM is not the only problem. There's something in your company's organization or culture that prohibits it - <USER2> will continue to do so.

<comment><USER6> > On somewhat aside, While it's true that most "Traditional Project > Management" implies waterfall, it's not quite true that "Water can't flow up > the waterwall". At least for the last few editions, PMBOOK explicitly > indicated that planning, execution, and monitoring are iterative and feed > into each other.

What is apparently generally regarded as the first published description of the waterfall method, from 1970 [0] (and which is, like most descriptions, critical of it) observed that in practice all the steps were iterative (and that the feedback was in many cases non-local.)

[0] [http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/wate...](http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc838p/Process/waterfall.pdf)</comment></comment>


Never back a Kickstarter without a programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/24/5930863/never-back-a-kickstarter-without-a-programmer-and-other-tips-to-not

<comment><USER2> crowdfunding in its current incarnation is a fad, the best demonstration of this was the potato salad fiasco.

crowdfunding is a total joke but like most fads when you're in the thick of it, it is difficult to realize that. only with the aid of hindsight is it obvious.

we'll look back on kickstarter the same way we look back on pets.com or other similar past silicon valley bs</comment>


Ask HN: What are you using for task tracking? - <AUTHOR>

I am curious what other people are using for task tracking. I haven't found one that I have been comfortable using so have basically been using a doc for data and calendar for reminders. I have been tossing around the idea of building an app for it to meet the requirements of my current work flow. I thought I would see what other people are using first to see if there is something like what I want already out there before I enter what appears to be an already competitive market. <comment><USER2> I have used: Trac, Redmine, Basecamp, Trello, FeatureZen, ActiveCollab, and a few others (including in-house trackers that I helped to build).

They vary wildly from far too technical for clients to use (Trac, Redmine); to too rigid to handle fast moving tasks (Trac and Redmine again, ActiveCollab); to too simple for complex/long-lifed/complex tasks (Basecamp, Trello).

FeatureZen is a pretty new addition to the stack (made by someone here at HN) and it's showing promise, but it's still very young.

I also came across sprint.ly recently, and thought that it looked interesting. I've put much thought into making a task tracker that fits "the real world" (whatever that may be), but every time I think too hard about it, I baulk at the size of the task.

In short; find something that suits your style, use it. If you need something different, don't be afraid of using two things for different situations. It becomes a bit of a nightmare to manage, but if it's just you, then it's easier to keep on top of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've tried several myself, mainly time trackers though. I came to the realization that time tracking wasn't as useful for me because I never remember to stop the clock. Especially since my job generally has be doing multiple things at once.

My task tracking right now is just simple notes of what I've done today. Later when I need to bill hours to different budget numbers I can go through the list as generally remember how much time I spent on each item in the list.

What I've found recently is I've been adding more notes and also putting todos in the same list. I also have a separate calendar reminder to make sure I fill out my list at the end of the day. It's starting to get complicated enough I'm considering throwing some code at it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to be a little more clear. Professionally I'm a sysadmin not a developer. So generally I spend my time supporting at least several different projects a day while also getting all the KLO done. At my place of work some projects have different budgets, so I have to track my time to make sure I'm billing the correct budget number.

This is what I'm looking to improve on. Right now I basically track it all in a doc, simple dates with a list under them of what I've done. When it comes time to fill my timesheet I got back and look at it day by day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been using Asana for the past few days. It doesn't look bad, works well in terms of assigning tasks, and putting dates/deadlines on specific tasks. (i.e. Work on task X today with email reminders). I like it and it's free for unto 30 users on one project.

Clickable: <https://asana.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Went from Trac to Redmine for code centric projects and just started to use Teambox for projects that involve non-coders. My main requirements are: Option to host it myself and the ability to read and modify the code.

</comment><comment><USER5> Funny, I was just looking around for a task/diary tool. Thanks to the commenters, I looked at Trello. So far, it's fits pretty well with my needs. And it's free (at least for 1 or 2 users)..

</comment><comment><USER6> I have used Pivotal Tracker for a couple of small projects. I would say it is worth a try, so long as you are willing to buy-in to the somewhat unusual model it uses.

</comment><comment><USER7> For personal tasks - pen and notebook.

For my team I use Trello. It's perfect.

</comment><comment><USER8> Taskwarrior is pretty cool... it has a fully command line based interface.

</comment><comment><USER9> Try out Trello to see if it works for your workflow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Trello looks interesting for my side projects. Going to check it out. Not sure it's a good fit for my professional needs yet. However, not ruling it out until I've spent some time with it, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Trello, right now. Very pleased with it.</comment>


My experience on eating once a day, hunger and food perception - <AUTHOR> http://blog.xavivives.com/post/137022495238/eating-once-a-day-hunger-and-food-perception <comment><USER2> I've always had two meals a day, people tend to tell me oh breakfast is SOOO important, but I tend to do better than most my peers with being alert in the morning. A glass of water is enough to get me ready. Been thin my whole life and it's hard not to see why, it's very challenging to beat 2000 calories with two meals, and when you try to fit some proteins and vegetables it's damn near impossible. I'm in the camp that wakes up somewhat uneasy in the stomach so I just naturally am not hungry when I wake. My only proven way to gain weight given my eating habits, has been lifting weights.

<comment><USER3> I think the most impressive part of this regimen would be not snacking. Having cheap, high calorie food / beverages available in, say, vending machines is a major problem that can bump people up in calories quickly. Add to that highly available / cheap fast food options (with giant cups of sugar water) and it becomes much worse.

This article is a good summary of how a crappy person's local food environment can be: [http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention- source/obesit...](http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention- source/obesity-causes/food-environment-and-obesity/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Three times a day is certainly not a hard rule - its just a habit.

During busy times at work, I can get down to once every other day. Its not hard. Its all about being distracted from hunger long enough to put it in the background.

As for how often we 'need' to eat, that's not clear. Three times a day is absolutely a made-up number. Cultural, not biological. And of course how many snack all day long? How many 'meals' is that?</comment>


Founders who can't code are like artist painters who can't paint - <AUTHOR> Sure it is definitely possible to for an artist to get someone else to create their artwork vision, but it's a whole lot easier and cheaper and quicker and the outcome is like to be better if the artist can do the painting. <comment><USER2> Can we also say Founders that can't sell are hobbyists? I can't code. But I work in industry (not tech related at all) and we have niche problems to be solved and customers are lining up. As of right now, I'm a solo "founder" with no coding skills and hired tech guys to do the MVP.

I think your original assertion is a bit much. I wish I was better at coding, but at this point in my life it is more valuable for me to sit with my clients and build relationships. I think that even if I was a very capable programmer, I would still not code and rather go out and talk to my clients or potential clients, because that is something my programming team cannot do. The more I interact with my clients, the more I learn about problems and issues they have that can be fixed with technology.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that depends on what kind of company it is. Not all companies are "tech" companies.

<comment><USER4> And even those that are do not need to be headed by a coder.

<comment><USER3> Jessica Livingston comes to mind. YC seems to doing okay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Founding a company isn't just about developing something. That's what an open source project is.

It's also about finding the right product-market fit, knowing how to market, knowing how to sell. How about founders who can't market are like painters who can't paint?

</comment><comment><USER6> Two things that just aren't comparable I'm afraid.

<comment><AUTHOR> On the contrary, when I get a vision of a product in my head, I feel utterly compelled to write the code until the vision is complete.

I feel like this must be what happens to artists - when they get a vision for an artwork, they must feel compelled to create it.

If the founder with the vision does not have the skills to create their vision then they must pay others to do so.

So I think the comparison extremely apt.

<comment><USER7> There are extremely successful artists who pay for other people to create their work. Similarly, artists regularly pay other people to make things for them, such as frames, etc.

There are a lot more artists who are technically skilled that don't have a creative bone in their body. You might as well pay them to create your work so you can leverage your best talent -- your ideas.

<comment><USER8> An person who pays others to create their work can be called a lot of things, but artist is not one of them.

<comment><USER7> I disagree. The art was clearly created. I don't think the mechanical act of creating art has supremacy over the creative act.

In fact, I'd contend that as a society we've agreed that the creative act is supreme to the mechanical act. Architects, directors, large scale-sculpture artists. Their works are created by other people, they merely provide instructions for other people to execute.

<comment><USER8> Semantics.

<comment><USER7> Well the argument is obviously is going to be centered around semantics if I'm responding to the claim that an artist isn't an artist if they don't make art in the right way.

<comment><USER8> That's why we're not arguing. Art is like fun, I know it when I see it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Like Steve Jobs?

</comment><comment><USER10> A founder who can't code is called "businessman".

</comment><comment><USER11> What about design?</comment>


Science Points to an Immaterial Mind - <AUTHOR> https://mindmatters.ai/2019/06/science-points-to-an-immaterial-mind/ <comment><USER2> This is a "Discovery Institute" video and article. Read and think carefully. Discovery Institute does not always promulgate the most careful science.

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent advice. Always read and think carefully about claims on either side of the mind divide.

<comment><USER2> Discovery Institute advocates "intelligent design", a concealed form of creationism. It's worth reading up about intelligent design and Discovery Institute just to inoculate your mind, I think, but I have a grudge.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you know there are atheists/agnostics who believe in "intelligent design" such as Nagel and Berlinski?

"intelligent design" == "creationism" is another proposition worthy of careful thought.

<comment><USER2> > Did you know there are atheists/agnostics who believe in "intelligent > design"

No, but that's an argument from authority, so maybe if I run across their arguments I'll evaluate them very skeptically, but I'm not going to go chasing down intelligent design arguments. I've looked at too many alreadyl

> "intelligent design" == "creationism" is another proposition worthy of > careful thought.

Yes, and after considering it carefully, I found that equivalence to be true. I also found Discovery Institute arguments to be almost entirely deceptive and in bad faith, but you may believe otherwise.

<comment><AUTHOR> My point is that atheists and agnostics do not usually believe in creationism. Therefore, their belief in intelligent design may indicate it is not creationism.

Additionally, for the Christians who believe in intelligent design, most of them also believe in evolution and an old earth.

So, it doesn't seem like the majority of intelligent design advocates are themselves creationists.

My perception is most intelligent design advocates are convinced that stochastic processes cannot generate highly complex structures with very precisely specified functionality. Thus, they believe the source of this functionality must lie outside of traditional evolutionary explanations.

<comment><USER2> There's plenty of theists and agnostics that do not believe in creationism or intelligent design. Therefore, their disbelief in intelligent design my indicate that it is creationism.

It does seem like the majority of intelligent design advocates are creationists. My assertion is just as powerful as your assertion: both are fact free.

<comment><AUTHOR> I personally know or have met almost all of the top intelligent design proponents, such as: Dembski, Marks, Behe, Johnson, Axe, Meyer, Sanford, Guillermo, Wells, and Sternberg. Most are certainly not of the 'god created the world in 6 days' variety creationists. Most believe in evolution and an old earth, consistent with most scientists today.

They only disagree with whether stochastic processes can generate highly complex, highly specified functionality. They believe this because they believe the evidence is very strongly in favor of their position. They are not advocating their position because of a religious agenda.

In fact, at least for some like Sanford, it is the other way around. He is one of the few 6 day creationist ID advocates, but he became a creationist from being an atheist after seeing the evidence for ID.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Satellite observations show sea levels rising - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/12/world/sea-level-rise-accelerating <comment><USER2> The paper: [http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/02/06/1717312115](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/02/06/1717312115)

TOPEX corrections: [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017JC013090/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017JC013090/full)

25 years might be too short.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is significant because:

"... scientists now have observed evidence validating climate model projections, as well as providing policy-makers with a "data-driven assessment of sea level change that does not depend on the climate models ..."

In other words, this is the validation of the predictive ability of climate models that skeptical folks like myself have long been demanding.

At least as far as sea level rises go, we finally have a solid basis for cost - benefit evaluation of emissions control policy.

</comment><comment><USER3> This study is a linear or at most a power model.

Glacier melting is likely to be extremely nonlinear because of physical reasons. Once a "cork in the wine bottle" gatekeeper glacier in a narrow sound in Antarctica or Greenland melts, we can have meters of sea level rise from that glacier alone. And there are multiple such glaciers.</comment>


Improvements to Private Networks - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/digitalocean-private-networking-faq <comment><USER2> "Beginning in February of 2018, communication over DigitalOcean Private Network IPs will be isolated within the account or team where they were created"

Great news, definitely a step in the right direction. The fact that DO's "private network" isn't really private is something that's not very well known I think (try googling for the topic).

Until then: Use DO firewalls to whitelist only the services connections you want. Their firewalls treat private and public networks equally -> no more publicly accessible NoSQL databases :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's great news for me too. Earlier this year I tried setting up VPNs so my droplets could speak to each other in isolation. Knowing that I don't have to worry about that will be a load off my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's a monster L2 domain, I'm amazed it hasn't crashed and burned by now.</comment>


$25 Smartphones on Firefox OS to Rock MWC - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321112 <comment><USER2> > "FireFox OS has less processing and memory requirements, since the OS and > the services live mostly in the cloud. For example, most of the apps written > for Firefox OS are written in HTML5 and can be run within a mobile browser."

this statement makes no sense. HTML/CSS/JS is not run "in the cloud" it is run on your hardware.

what services exactly are run in the cloud? gps? phonebook? baseband? camera? mic? wifi chip? the cpu scheduler?

i dont see anything running in the cloud that will significantly reduce hardware requirements like Opera Mobile (maybe Mini, i forget) did with actual server-side html/css/js processing and passing back a serialized image with hit locations

<comment><USER3> It just doesnt make sense, Firefox OS doesnt do more 'in the cloud' than you would expect.

<comment><USER4> Don't question the power of the cloud!

<comment><USER2> sometimes i wonder if many tech evangelists & PR people are so detached from the technology they promote that they themselves don't understand what they mean when they say "cloud". the unwashed masses clearly have no way of understanding what "the cloud" is any more than "a series of tubes"

<comment><USER5> I've noticed that a lot of people seem to think that "cloud servers" are either located in space, or that smartphones at least use some kind of satellite uplink to connect with "the cloud".

I think people are simply mixing up GPS with Internet-based services.

Anyway, it's pretty brilliant marketing for cloud companies. It's kind of poetic to think of your data as being "somewhere up in the sky", light as air -- sure beats the reality of thousands of hot, smelly data centers in nondescript office buildings.

<comment><USER2> "Daddy, when I die, will I be up there with my data?"

::facepalm::

<comment><USER4> Well, to be fair, you can't entirely rule that out...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have seen a $80 Firefox OS phone. The ZTE Open. I think it was $80, maybe it was 80EUR.

It's unusable. Completely unusable. I can't fathom how a $25 phone works.

<comment><USER7> We've made major strides since Firefox OS 1.0, but even with everything we think we can do there, a $25 phone is not going to feel like what you're used to. No one is claiming that it will.

To understand why that's OK, imagine that you gave up your hero phone and spent a couple of years using a $50 feature phone over 2.5G. And then picked up a Firefox OS smartphone for about $25 and compared them.

We can and will beat the feature phone experience for billions of people who are or will soon be ready to make the leap from feature phones to smartphones and who won't be served by the high cost of iOS and Android devices.

They will have access to a comfortable phone with real web browsing, popular apps, an onscreen keyboard, cameras, notifications, etc, and if we're effective, a great experience that's affordable enough to help them move to this modern online era well before they otherwise might have.

While the big guys are fighting over upgrades for the 4th and 5th generation smartphone users, we're figuring out how to get the next 4 billion people online with their first smartphone.

Maybe we're crazy. I remember a lot of people telling us we were crazy to think we could dethrone Microsoft's browser monopoly. I'm an optimist. I think we're just crazy enough to pull it off. I think the world is counting on us.

<comment><USER8> Users in richer nations upgrading to newer generations of Android and iOS devices has resulted in a huge number of used devices ending up in developing nations. These devices are extremely inexpensive, yet still quite capable.

How are Firefox OS and these near-unusable devices supposed to compete with the imported used Android and iOS devices that are far more capable?

When somebody in a developing nation can get a 2 or 3 year old device for $25, and it runs Android or iOS, and it gives a pretty good experience, I just don't see why they'd subject themselves to the comparatively poor experience of a equivalently priced Firefox OS device that gives a worse experience.

And it wasn't Firefox that "dethroned Microsoft's browser monopoly". It was very clearly Chrome's doing, thanks to the 40%+ share of the market it now holds. Firefox played second fiddle, only ever capturing approximately 30% of the market at its peak. With Firefox likely accounting for less than 20% of all browser users today, it's even more apparent that Chrome is mostly responsible for IE's loss of popularity.

<comment><USER9> Whoa. Let's not rewrite history. Firefox deserves all the credit it gets for resurrecting browser competition in the 2000s. To "dethrone a monopoly" you don't have to knock it down to less than 50% market share, you just need to reduce it enough that the monopoly has to react to competition again.

<comment><USER10> Yet these experiments like Firefox Os are exactly the reason why Mozilla is not what it used to be. And Firefox browser did not came out of the void neither, it wouldnt have existed without Netscape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I usually don't go mountain biking in an eighteen wheeler, so for casual web browsing and data apps a basic phone with web capabilities might be enough.

So yes, there is a market for that too.

As a developer I say, bring it on.

<comment><USER12> As long as it's not slower than a J2ME feature phone.

<comment><USER10> My 2005 midlet phone runs arcade games that could not even run in a modern mobile browser. Mind you,since J2ME is pretty limited, java midlets are developped with these limitations in mind. modern HTML5 games are not developped with crappy Firefox os performances in mind. That's the reason why i dont believe in that javascript buzz driven product, it's just irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _jaw drops_

Amazing work by the mozilla crew ! Running a JS-based environment on such stingy hardware is audacious to begin with and awe-inspiring that they consider it production ready ..

Eagerly waiting for reviews to understand what trade-offs went into getting a $25 retail price.

<comment><USER14> Unfortunately people will get angry when heavy jquery-based apps run like shit. JavaScript is very quick, but the way people write and use it makes it slow...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here is some slides from people working on getting Firefox OS on 128MB devices - [http://www.codemud.net/~thinker/share/tarako-memshrink- embed...](http://www.codemud.net/~thinker/share/tarako-memshrink-embed.svg)

<comment><USER15> I think that's the first non-demo example of an interactive SVG I've ever seen. Shame; SVG is the perfect replacement for Flash.

<comment><USER16> Inkscape allows you to create SVG presentations with JessyInk. And it works with the browser's navigation history stuff.

An example of my own: [http://chrismorgan.info/blog/rust-docs-vision- presentation.h...](http://chrismorgan.info/blog/rust-docs-vision- presentation.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh What.... 128MB of Ram, Are they serious? I wouldn't have doubt as much if it was 256MB.

Many will end up buying the cheapest phone possible. And the experience will be shite, which then damage the already not so good reputation of FireFox OS. Despite being a Mozilla supporter and browsing the web with Firefox, Mozilla has repeatedly time and time again just not care about user experience at all.

And the funny thing about all these report on New Firefox OS phone coming out, none of them has pricing apart from this $25 dollar phone. Even the Reference Design dont get a price either. How will Evangelist and enthusiast buy and get one?

</comment><comment><USER18> > "FireFox OS has less processing and memory requirements, since the OS and > the services live mostly in the cloud. For example, most of the apps written > for Firefox OS are written in HTML5 and can be run within a mobile browser."

But then if you need to do very heavy computation, like photo editing, wouldn't that require good GPU? Can $25 provide that? Also consider running multiple webpages (try open tumblr on mobile) and multiple apps in the background. I haven't never owned FxOS but I honestly think this statement is for bare minimum flip-phone. If people have negative reviews for the one in the market (ZTE Open, for example), how could a $25 beat the $79 one?

<comment><USER19> I don't think you would do 'photoshop-style' heavy editing on mobile. Instagram-like filters or crops run fine and don't need that much. It won't add seconds to the processing if you use a low-grade $25 phone, it will probably just add something like a few milliseconds.

The first sentence of the quote, however, is ridiculous. The OS doesn't "live mostly in the cloud". The OS and default apps are installed on the phone and don't need internet to run, they live on the phone. Web technologies != cloud.

I guess you can't expect technical details to be right when you're talking to some non-technical guy ("Wayne Lam, senior analyst for consumer and communications at IHS").

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are there official specs anywhere? From the presentaiton slide [1] I understand this phone to have 3GB of storage and a 2.6" screen at 480x320. That seems just too little to be useful as a 'smart'phone. The data plan must be really low price for this to be worth getting over a $100-$200 device (what sort of prices are there in developing countries?).

[1] [https://twitter.com/codepo8/status/437616415101976576](https://twitter.com/codepo8/status/437616415101976576)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm confused at the claims about low memory. Fennec had previously abandoned 256MiB devices: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=792131](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=792131). Is Fennec not the core of Firefox OS? Does anyone know how much RAM this $25 phone has?

<comment><USER22> Underlying Firefox OS is B2G/boot-to-Gecko. That doesn't include any of the Android app stuff that's in Fennec.

<comment><USER21> Ok, I misunderstood the architecture. I thought Fennec was a retargetable 'mobile Firefox' core as opposed to Firefox for Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> wow...

how is this really possible at all ?

I mean a $75 or $100 smartphone, I would be "yaay", but $25 ? Isn't this a little too cheap ? How do you cut costs that much ?

<comment><USER24> The market passed "$75 or $100" a while ago.

$60 is where things are at now:

[http://orange.co.ke/smartphones_androids.html](http://orange.co.ke/smartphones_androids.html)

$40 or $50 is the frontier:

[http://www.pepstores.com/product/mtn- steppa/](http://www.pepstores.com/product/mtn-steppa/) [http://memeburn.com/2014/02/huaweis-sub-70-smartphone- shows-...](http://memeburn.com/2014/02/huaweis-sub-70-smartphone-shows- mtns-50-steppa-gambles-already-paying-off/)

$25 is the next wave.

<comment><USER25> Can confirm bought a bunch of pre-paid Huawei Y300s for $50 ($56.50 total with 13% tax + $5 to unlock) on sale in Canada. Awesome Android phones for the price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> 1 GiB, aka 128 MB of RAM and Firefox?

On the Windows 7 machine I'm using to type this, Firefox uses 176 MB to show the empty-ish Google home page.

<comment><USER27> Firefox and Firefox OS are very different things.

Also, considering that desktop programs are usually optimized for speed and not for memory consumption, I don't see the issue with 176MB?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> But will it run WhatsApp?! ;)

<comment><USER19> Try Loqui IM on the marketplace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Android can be built and configured to run on some very stingy hardware, like 800mhz single core SoCs. If this is a new SoC, it's probably at least that fast.

<comment><USER7> Android's new floor is 512MB of RAM and that ain't happening in a $25 phone. Firefox OS will run on 128MB, fitting into an entire category of phones that modern versions of Android simply cannot.

<comment><USER30> Does this use the same code in standard firefox , or a different code base?

<comment><USER31> The underlying rendering engine (Gecko, FirefoxOS "Boots to Gecko" hence the codename is "B2G") is the same - all apps (including the Browser app on the phone) are written in HTML5/JS/CSS: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G](https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G)

B2G is different than Desktop Firefox in some ways, for instance it uses multiple processes (this is being worked on for Desktop, it's already in use for plugins for instance) and supports some new APIs to access the hardware on the phone that you'd expect: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI](https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebAPI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Future possibilities - FirefoxOSCast like ChromeCast (under $35), Firefoxbook like ChromeBook (under $100).</comment>


How to Close a Gender Gap: Let Employees Control Their Schedules - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/upshot/how-to-close-a-gender-gap-let-employees-control-their-schedules.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=upshot&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=The%20Upshot&pgtype=article <comment> david-gpu The article puts a strong emphasis in how (truly) flexible schedules benefit women but I think it applies just as well to men, particularly once you have children.

<comment><USER2> Indeed. The article cites the stigma of being the woman who can't come in to work because her child threw up -- but there's far more stigma attached to being the _man_ who can't come in to work because his child threw up.

<comment><USER3> > _there 's far more stigma attached to being the man who can't come in to > work because his child threw up._

I'm pretty spoiled ("privileged" might be a more accurate term), but I've called out fairly often due to having a much better time off policy than my wife - so when the kid is sick and can't go to daycare, I tend to pick up 75%+ of the stay-home time with her. I've never had a problem at work, and other dads at work have done the same thing.

I literally can't imagine someone giving me shit about it, or a coworker suggesting that it's the woman's/mom's job to stay home with a sick child. I guess it's different in non-software fields?

<comment><USER2> You're lucky to have such an enlightened workplace. There are many companies where fathers are officially allowed to take parental leave or work flexible hours, but in practice everybody knows that those are really just for women; the fact that men are allowed to make use of those options and people don't _say_ anything doesn't necessarily mean that they don't quietly write off child-caring men as being unreliable or uncommitted.

I don't have any data on flexible work hours, but in 2011 a study found that only 4% of new fathers took over 2 weeks of parental leave. This is why it was so important when Zuckerberg took two months of parental leave -- it set an example and communicated to the company "men taking parental leave is normal".

<comment><USER3> My workplace only gives us 2 weeks off for paternity; but I was able to take an additional week off as vacation. tbh, it still wasn't enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is just an ad for the site "werk" disguised as an article . Also, Erin Fahs should really consider a better chair.

<comment><USER5> I thought that NYT had to add a disclaimer when it's sponsored content?

If that's true, then this might just be lazy reporting?

I'm all for putting an end to native ads, but we have to admit any press about something is effectively an ad.

<comment><USER6> Obligatory link to PG's essay on corporate PR:

[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In some jobs, this just isn't practical. I know of a law firm that has the best employment record & situation for women, but is suffering because so many are working part time and/or working from home. It's made the firm less competitive and undesirable for a merger.

<comment><USER8> But what about its effect on recruiting and retention? For most law firms those are both huge issues -- and in many cases much more important than the two factors you mentioned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> While this is a great solution is many sectors it won't solve anything in others. As a man I love having flexibility in my job. One of the best perks. But you can't do that for a lot of jobs, a lot of high skill jobs too. So while I think we should do this, will it really solve much?

<comment><USER10> Which jobs you can't do it for? Isn't this just a matter of "buffering", i.e. having enough people in the place to deal with the unexpected?

<comment><USER11> Well, any sort of job that isn´t strictly associated with pure officework.

Something like doctor, nurse, any sort of trade, outside sales, any sort of in-person service, police, fireman, trucking/delivery. Most of these professions employ more people than IT, I believe.

Even a lot of other professions have certains times of the year/situation where you have to be there. For instance, if you're an accountant, during end of year inventories, you have to be around to take a physical inventory. If you're a lawyer or judge, you have to show up to court.

<comment><USER9> Not only do you need to show up, but you need to show up at certain times. It would be a mess if doctors or judges just came in when they felt like it. Though a counter point I can see lawyers having flexible schedules, except for court appearances. I think most jobs will require some time being in the location, it is just about if you can change what those hours are. But just from the list you mentioned and the ones I was thinking of, are the jobs that cannot be flexible more male dominated?

<comment><USER11> Well, the previous comment I was replying to had a caveat that was this applies to jobs that "weren't customer facing".

If you take that away, most of the jobs that need you to be at a certain place and certain time require a certain amount of physical labor.

At the risk of igniting a gender war (which I have accused of on this board), men on average are stronger than women are. If you're talking about jobs with a large physical component, men generally gravitate to/are more effective at those jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Also, get more women into the military, oil refineries, etc.

<comment><USER13> Don't forget about sanitation work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if we could close it even further if we let the employees _control the means of production_.

<comment><USER15> Probably not. There are a few places which already approach this socialist ideal - hedge funds, some management consulting firms and some law firms.

In this firms, employees control the means of production because employees _are_ the means of production. Such firms tend to be mostly owned by employees themselves.

These firms are not known for being family friendly or having a work life balance. The reason is that these firms are populated by high productivity, high effort individuals. Such people rarely want to work with people less dedicated than themselves, people they rightly think of as underperformers. (I've worked with such people in the past and it's dreadful.)

In your proposed world, high productivity employees would likely self segregate into high productivity firms which would not be particularly family friendly. Lower productivity employees who want to take years off from the workforce and put family first would shift into lower productivity firms.

This means the same inequality would exist. Women would work at the family friendly firms, their husbands would work at the high productivity firms, and the inequality would continue.

(In fact, even in the modern world, inequality of this sort has been the primary driver of inequality growth. [https://www.nber.org/papers/w21199](https://www.nber.org/papers/w21199) )

<comment><USER14> Thank you for the insight. I was being semi facetious with my comment; owning the MoP isn't the only required change for a Socialist society; I had similar thoughts to yours with regard to segregation of the more and less productive.

Though I am not sure how this problem can be addressed. I suspect that the fact that humans wouldn't have to work so much would alleviate part of the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Also relevant? "Why Some Men Pretend to Work 80-Hour Weeks" [https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-some-men-pretend-to- work-80-hour...](https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-some-men-pretend-to-work-80-hour- weeks)

<comment><USER17> Cool. The end of the article reminds me of a somewhat recent cheating scandal that the US Navy had at one of its huge schools. The Navy adjusts its tests to be harder if pass rates get too high, which was the case at a base where instructors were passing answer keys to one another (ongoing certification tests, it seems.) The cheating led to higher pass rates and harder tests until eventually it was impossible to pass the test by just studying.

Similarly, the only way to have a life at these jobs is by cheating on the appearance of hours worked. I would say nearly the majority of my colleagues now are big savers who plan to get their money and then leave to have families for about this same reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This thinly veiled advert for Werk doesn't explain how someone working remotely while caring for children will still be outperformed by someone without children working remotely. How is this meant to close "the gender gap"?

<comment><USER19> The answer to this "problem" isn't fair to a generation that was never taught life isn't fair. So we'll continue to get articles like this I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> [http://www.chicksontheright.com/audi-accidentally- disproves-...](http://www.chicksontheright.com/audi-accidentally-disproves- its-entire-gender-wage-gap-commercial/)

> @Audi You pay your female employees less than males? You know that's against > the law, right?

> @TueborFrog When we account for all the various factors that go into pay, > women at Audi are on par with their male counterparts.

I think that says it all.

Instead of worrying about wages, how about letting people do what they want and maybe fix the broken work culture that favours people who pretend to work hard?

</comment><comment><USER7> ITT: Programmers / Sysadmins who are in an industry ideally suited for remote work.

Other industries are not so suited to this.

<comment><USER21> On the contrary, industries that can be converted to a shift work model are also suited to this. Vox did a similar analysis to the NYT last year [0], and one thing they pointed out was that the wage gap among pharmacists nearly went away when pharmacies changed from being independent one-man shops to being part of large chains such as Walmart and CVS that hire pharmacists to work staggered shifts.

The Walmartization of professions results in higher wages for women.

[0] [http://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12108126/gender-wage-gap- explain...](http://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12108126/gender-wage-gap-explained- real)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The solution to the gender gap is to fundamentally change how work is done. I'm glad it was that simple.

<comment><USER23> I think your mindset is part of the problem...

WHEN someone works isn't a fundamental issue. IF we're talking retail, thats an obvious exception. If we're talking a job where the employee isnt directly contacting customers, then the time they work is largely less important. The most efficient team I've worked on in my career was made up from people around the world, there were 9 of us, everyone single one was in a different timezone, some 12 hours off from each other... and we got more done as a team than any Team I've been on before or sense... and it was largely due to the nature of our hours... we had to make sure we buttoned our shit up, we documented it well, we communicated VERY efficiently and effectively... etc.

I know it doesn't work for every position at every company, no single thing does, but to consider 9-5 (or any set schedule in particular) "fundamental" to business is short-sided at best...

<comment><USER11> No, many jobs aren't customer facing yet require you to be in a certain place at a certain time, such as most trades (carpentry and welding), long haul trucking, repairman, and deliveryman.

The only job I can think of that won't get mostly automated away are either jobs that require either/both lots of creative talent (such as a highly skilled engineer, artist, etc) or require an actual onsite presence (contractor, building inspector, pest control.)

<comment><USER23> "No, many jobs aren't customer facing yet require you to be in a certain place at a certain time, such as most trades (carpentry and welding), long haul trucking, repairman, and deliveryman."

What about those, if you're not interacting with the customer, requires a certain time? A repairman can work any time if hes not dealing with the customer - as long as the job is done on time. The same for all of these.

Most of the things you listed are customer facing... which is why they have timeframes, so you can interact with the customer (or have access, etc).

<comment><USER24> A lot of jobs require coordination with other people.

A truck driver can arrive whenever they want provided there are staff ready to unload when they arrive.

An uncoordinated house build can take 2-3x as long due to trades waiting on each other. Etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As an average-looking man from an average family, if I want to attract a woman I need to be successful. The more successful I become, the higher quality of woman I can get.

For a woman, extra career success will not boost her attractiveness in the same way it will for me.

This is a _huge_ incentive. If women don't have the same incentives to work hard as men, how can they achieve the same level of success?

<comment><USER25> This amounts to trolling whether you meant it that way or not. Please don't start flamewars on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

Also, it looks you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological arguments (at least recently). That's not what we want here, and worse, it's actively destructive of what we do want—thoughtful discussions and intellectual curiosity. So please don't use HN like this.

<comment><USER26> >> Also, it looks you've been using HN primarily for political and ideological arguments (at least recently).

We're all pretty sick of your badgering everyone with differing opinions, dang.

If you want a safe space insulated from intellectual diversity, try NeoGaf.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Vox did a similar article last year: [http://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12108126/gender-wage-gap- explain...](http://www.vox.com/2016/8/1/12108126/gender-wage-gap-explained- real)

I'm glad to see that more sources are coming to the same consensus on the subject.</comment>


Announcing Linkerd 1.0 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.buoyant.io/2017/04/25/announcing-linkerd-1.0/ <comment><USER2> I think that Linkerd is totally awesome and that it's definitely not receiving the attention that it deserves.

One may think that Linkerd only fits in large projects but having that layer that manages the communication between my apps/microservice represents a huge boost forward for any project regardless its size. With Linkerd you're relying on the expertise of a team with _vast_ knowledge on the field.

For those of you worried about the memory footprint of JVM, Linkerd can perfectly run in the 32-bit JVM (Docker image buoyantio/linkerd:1.0.0-32b) and with only 256mb the results are impressive. More here: [https://blog.buoyant.io/2016/06/17/small-memory-jvm- techniqu...](https://blog.buoyant.io/2016/06/17/small-memory-jvm-techniques- for-microservice-sidecars/).

</comment><comment><USER3> Huge congrats to that team. We've been using LEAN-KURD for awhile now and it's been a huge boon for us not having to ask our individual product teams learn Scala for finagle. Well, we asked and they said no, so here we are.

It'll be interesting to me to see how this evolves in the K8S system, which it's really ideal for. It _feels_ like this is the next wave of tech along w/ stuff like heptio. People want clean batteries included abstractions as much as possible.</comment>


Daily Telegraph Installs Workplace Monitors on Journalists' Desks - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/telegraph-workplace-sensors?utm_term=.hx8ABqz4r#.ghjq149Zn <comment><USER2> I commend the idea (assuming the leadership was being honest) but you don't just install a black box on someone's desk and not explain what it is before hand.</comment>


Next Silicon Valleys: How did California get it so right? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26041341

<comment><USER2> easy, first build stanford, caltech, ucsb, fairchild, etc...</comment>


Show HN: ZapBear - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zapbear/id1016670264?mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> Simple reaction game. Inspired by the Thunder Plane sequence in a Final Fantasy game. Screen flashes, tap to dodge lightning.</comment>


You Need to be in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://20minus.com/wp/2011/04/06/you-need-to-be-in-san-francisco/

<comment><USER2> Interesting that Austin is left out. I would put Austin before Boulder and after NY... but I am bias I guess.

<comment><USER3> Hey llouydarmbrust!

I understand what you are saying, please understand that when trying to get a picture of each high tech hub back from Europe we tend to view only things that sign, which may or may not be gold in the end.

My perception as to what Austin is, was SxSW and Gowalla. Compared to the cities mentioned these two alone where not adequate enough to put Austin in my radar... I never heard (up to today) of a great VC-er/blogger, a great accelerator program or something cool starting out from Austin...

Don't get me wrong, Austin may be great, may be awesome, it just lacks a few points in the communication dept...

<comment><USER2> That is interesting. Most of our investors (including VCs) recognize Austin as a startup hub. We have several VCs, a lot of angels, and two accelerator programs.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pay to win tic-tac-toe for Android - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joshuasnider.tictactoe

<comment><AUTHOR> This was mostly done as a joke, but is also my first Android app.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hilariously, the blog post [http://www.joshuasnider.com/update/android/gaming/2015/08/17...](http://www.joshuasnider.com/update/android/gaming/2015/08/17/tictactoe/) I made about it has about 60% as many words as the program.

</comment><comment><USER2> Did you implement minimax algorithm?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the AI decides on the optimal move using a minmax algorithm. The exceptions are for the first move when its playing as X and when "easy mode" is enabled where it just plays randomly.</comment></comment>