Cat vs. panel heater: which is better? - <AUTHOR> https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/38319 <comment><USER2> I was once desperately poor. Too poor to turn on the heat. But I did have access to friendly cats, so I've been through this experiment in real life.

One cat stuffed under the blankets at night is a significant improvement. But as you add more and more cats, the improvement becomes only incremental.

I eventually learned that two cats was really the best one could hope for. Best positioning is between the legs, and with the blankets pulled up over my head with a little crack for breathing. After that, adding more cats doesn't help much.

If I was still cold after two cats, I had to break down and turn on the heat.

<comment><USER3> Have you tried just adding more blankets. I never run heating at night because I find that even at 0c outside I can just stack up 4 blankets and still be warm.

<comment><USER4> Having slept outdoors a lot in the past, I think many people underestimate the importance of the ground/floor/bed in keeping from freezing.

If you have excess blankets, it could make more difference to put them under you as opposed to above you. Even spruce branches or cardboard will lift you from the ground enough to make a difference in a pinch.

<comment><USER5> I agree - I packed an air mattress to sleep on during camping when it was cold on the ground. The air didn't insulate as well as I expected so I was freezing from below.

There are so many things around us that are such incredible achievements in comfort over not having them. It is a good experience living without some of them for a while to get appreciation for it:

\- electricity \- heating \- beds \- running water \- showers \- drains (sewer? I mean being able to pour out water in the kitchen, not having to carry it out) \- washing machine \- (etc)

<comment><USER6> > I packed an air mattress to sleep on during camping when it was cold on the > ground. The air didn't insulate as well as I expected so I was freezing from > below.

No sleeping bag?

<comment><USER5> No, for some reason I decided to use a regular duvet. With a sleeping bag it would probably have been less of an issue.

<comment><USER7> I was going to say, I never really understood why sleeping bags seem to be the default for camping but I get it now.

<comment><USER6> They're warmer, more comfortable, easier to carry...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An interesting study, but spatially non-uniform dynamic thermal location and local partial biomass availability seem like factors here. While direct heaters, ground source heat pumps in particular, can be exceptionally efficient and functional year round, they ultimately have fixed exchange locations and must bring the whole house volume to temperature. Whereas a cat heater is dynamic: for example while I am sleeping the cat is liable to apply all 15 watts directly to my face. I can anecdotally report a significant insulation effect as well. Or while I'm desperately trying to complete a final sprint the cat may decide that my keyboard is the ideal radiative location. A proper heating model probably needs to take this into account albeit with a lot of chaos and quantum theory mixed in as the cat may or may not be providing heat until observed. And cats in general are equipped with local biomass harvesting and conversion capabilities that may further alter supplemental fuel costs.

Never the less I certainly look forward to continued research on this topic!

<comment><USER9> Are you aware of Nathan W. Pyle?

His Strange Planet comic is written a bit like this

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sorry to be the downer on this article, but if you head to oneroof's "news" page [0] you'll see their entire raison d'être is to push out articles for NZ's media outlets to reproduce in the hopes of encouraging the continued misallocation of capital into residential real estate. So them making light of the house heating situation is in extremely poor taste considering such issues as NZ being the only developed country in the world with significant instances of rheumatic fever [1] and a quarter of South Island renters being stuck with cold and mouldy accommodation [2] (which they couldn't leave for weeks due to the pandemic).

[0] [https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/latest- news](https://www.oneroof.co.nz/news/latest-news)

[1] [https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/122260447/we-have- to...](https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/122260447/we-have-totally- failed-rheumatic-fever-the-third-world-disease-entrenched-in-new-zealand)

[2] [https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/queenstown/warmth- issue-25-ren...](https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/queenstown/warmth- issue-25-renters)

<comment><USER11> Can you connect the last dot for me and explain why "(mis)allocation of capital into residential real estate" is bad for warmth, affordability, and fighting rheumatic fever?

<comment><USER12> Presumably, high rates of investment drive up prices (since supply is somewhat constrained). High prices reduce the ability for people to purchase, so they have to rent, but then higher purchase price means the investors have to increase rent too. This means there is a lot of demand at the low end of the housing market, where houses aren't as well maintained/insulated/upgraded

<comment><USER13> Investing in housing should lead to building more housing, which will lower prices for everyone. Is the investment only used to renovate existing housing?

<comment><USER12> Buying a house (in NZ) is a liquid investment with better returns than the stock market and no captial gains tax. Building involves much more risk, nimbyisn, geographic constraints. The cost of building is more closely related to the cost of labour than it is materials, so even at higher prices margins aren't nessecarily better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The first time I took my cat camping it was much colder than expected. At bed time I filled a bottle with hot water and wrapped my cat up in a blanket with it. Being a cat, he immediately squirmed his way out of it and started walking around the freezing tent.

I was starting to get worried until the little guy realized he could just barely squeeze into my zipped up sleeping bag.

It was a big mess of fur and limbs all night, but we both managed to stay warm enough.

<comment><USER15> You took your cat camping?

<comment><USER16> 'take' would appear to be the correct tense – this is apparently just about _the first time_. i recently discovered that cats can actually be trained, to a certain extent (mostly behavioural tricks as opposed to commands). i wonder if it's possible to guide certain cat traits for your own benefit. imagine Cat goes out hunting and returns, leaving a rabbit at your feet, while you are preparing the campfire. my guess is that it would be possible to encourage, though not so to choose your dinner.

<comment><USER14> I actually did train this same cat in a lot of the classic dog commands. He'll sit, shake, lay down, and roll over on command. It's certainly harder to train a cat on commands but it ended up being a little easier than I thought it would be going in.

I think it helps to have a cat that's highly food motivated. While following orders comes naturally to a lot of dogs, training a cat feels more like a bartering system. He'll put up with my silly requests in exchange for treats that he likes. If the treats stopped coming I doubt he would keep following instructions for long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Bertha's Kitty Boutique was already on this in 2005...

> Bertha's Kitty Boutique reminds you that heating bills are going to be high > this winter and on these cold winter nights, there's nothing more comforting > than a warm cat. (PURRING) And if one cat can warm you up, think of what 6, > or 10 of 'em could do. These are skinny designer cats, these are big heater > cats (MEOW) who use tuna for fuel and produce enough BTUs to heat up your > whole bed and your bedroom too. And we have them in all styles to go with > your bedroom decor -- tabby cats, angora, Siamese, orange cats, black cats > -- anywhere from 30 pounders up to the family size. Heater cats from > Bertha's (MEOW) Hurry in while supplies last.

[https://www.prairiehome.org/story/2005/10/01/berthas- kitty-b...](https://www.prairiehome.org/story/2005/10/01/berthas-kitty- boutique.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> " A 3kg cat has a heat output of 14.8 watts, or 129.65 kilowatt-hours..."

Playing fast and loose here. That's 129.65 kilowatt hours per year. 14.8 watts is 0.0148 kilowatts of course. Kilowatt hours are a measure of total energy output over a given time not instantaneous output.

<comment><USER19> Also that's kWh summed up over the year. Cats have constant output, but for house heating you'd want to concentrate it to just ~3-4 months. So we're closer to 50-60 cats at that point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was put off by the following sentence:

> ... 14.8 watts, or 129.65 kilowatt-hours - the metric commonly used by power > companies ...

It should say 129.65 kilowatt-hours PER YEAR. Without the time, it's like saying "a car goes at 50mph or 1000 miles". It's just nonsense.

<comment><USER21> I briefly found myself thinking that the cat was the metric commonly used by power companies.

<comment><USER22> Now you're talking sense

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of the story of how Three Dog Night got their name.

Apparently it referred to Australian Aborigines using three dingos to sleep with on very cold nights.

<comment><USER24> Since getting a dog I've learned dogs and cats both run a degree or two hotter than we do — 38-39 C as against our 37. Noticeably adds to the comfort level, even if there's only one under the covers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not sure where they got their cost estimate from, but I spend a lot more than $250/year on each of my two cats (and 250 NZD is only ~160 USD). Still, fun article :)

<comment><USER26> I recently had to choose between these two options:

      1. Removal of splinter from pet cat's eyeball: $1,650
      2. Removal of cat's eyeball: $1,400

Blew out my pet budget for a long while. I have the photo that the vet ophthalmologist took - they were cool enough to send it to us.

<comment><USER27> Apologies if it's insensitive, but I'm curious what the financial cost of "putting cat down and acquiring new cat" would be; mere intellectual curiosity.

<comment><USER26> $50 to get a vet to put a cat down. And roughly the same amount to get a desexed, flea-treated moggy from a shelter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Definitely noticed a difference in getting a cat on heating requirements in Seattle. I got two cats now, and my heat is turned off year round.

</comment><comment><USER29> The ideal number of cats per home in New Zealand is zero. Cats prey on local wildlife, much of which is near extinction as it is because of introduced predators including humans. Those who advocate for banning cats in New Zealand have a pretty strong case.

<comment><USER30> Is there an argument against indoor cats? That is now the recommendation in the US, as far as I know.

<comment><USER31> I live in NZ and my partner has an indoor-only cat. It's considered a bit weird here, we've had friends politely suggest that keeping a cat indoors is cruel. In principle indoor cats are just as good for bird life as no cats, but either is a tough sell.

<comment><USER32> Considering longer lifespan, better health, and seemingly equivalent happiness, it's arguable that _not_ keeping a cat indoors is cruel.

<comment><USER33> Just like how it's arguably cruel to _not_ move all wildlife into zoos and cages.

<comment><USER32> Assuming we're agreeing to use QALYs, I think that's unlikely, but don't let my skepticism stop you from arguing it. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> As for the title itself (and probably my understanding of NZ english), for me "panel heater" means one of the modern electric powered planar sources of IR radiation and after living for few months in flat heated by only such things I've found that only reasonable way to use such electric heaters is that these things somehow warm up your cats and nothing much else in the room ;)

</comment><comment><USER35> I had to dry out my boots once with a panel heater, after a passing driver decided to enliven my rainy-day walking commute by driving through an overflowing gutter and drenching me from head to toe.

I wouldn't have liked to try it with a cat instead...

<comment><USER36> Use enough duct tape and a cat would be fine for this

<comment><USER35> Wow, for real? What a fucked-up thing to say.

<comment><USER37> There is a thing called sarcasm you may want to look into.

<comment><USER35> I mean, I get that it's _trying_ to be a joke. But it's not trying very hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> _> as cats cannot be used for cooling, you would also have to introduce an alternative cooling system such as lizards or other cold-blooded animals_

Even cold blooded animals produce more heat than they consume.

<comment><USER39> It was a joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> > A 3kg cat has a heat output of 14.8 watts, or 129.65 kilowatt-hours

I don't get it, how is 14.8 watts equal to 129.65 kilowatt-hours?

<comment><USER41> They forgot to specify per year.

(129650 WHr/14.8 W)/24 hr = 365 days

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Unfortunately, in my experience, cats are endothermic. Give a cat a heat source – a sunny patch, a heated blanket, or a warm belly – and they will cling to it until all the heat is absorbed out of it. Cats need heat sources to thrive, so they will be very unhappy if operated as a heat source.

<comment> mark-r Some cats recognize that the benefit is mutual. I have 4 cats, and 1 of the 4 will lay with me in a way that we provide a warm surface for each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Tough to say. All I saw was a blank white page with no text or images. After jumping through some hoops I saw all that javascript was for a couple paragraphs of text. So I'll just mirror it here for others.

As an aside about the actual content: cats come with vet bills you have to be able to pay if you want to ethically own one. That's a huge expense.

        Cat v panel heater: Which is better?
        6:34 AM, 24 Aug 2020 James Powers

        Cats are affectionate, panel heaters are not.
        How many cats do you need to heat an energy-efficient home?
        It's the question on everybody's lips. Well, maybe not everyone's lips, and it's possible this is a niche topic, but it is relevant.
        A 3kg cat has a heat output of 14.8 watts, or 129.65 kilowatt-hours - the metric commonly used by power companies to show you how much energy you're using.
        These numbers are important when it comes to the design and building of energy-efficient homes, as the heat output of random things like cats can lead to overheating.
        For example, to be certified Passive House, a building must have an annual heating demand of less than 15kWh per square metre to maintain a comfortable temperature.
        For a typical Kiwi house of 150sqm, the annual energy demand would be 2250kWh. The number of cats required, therefore, would be 17.35, but let's avoid chopping cats and round up to 18 whole cats.
        This equates to 1 cat per 8.33sqm.
        Easy as. Let's bulk order a cat litter.
        Cats cost about $250 per year to 'operate' which equates to a total running cost of $4,300 per year*. This is a bit more than $475 for gas or $675 for electric, although the installation cost is less for cats.
        * The calculations have used an average heat load. In reality, the heat load will vary considerably throughout the year. You will need significantly more cats in colder weather and less during mild weather.
        In hot weather, you can, of course, let the cats out, but this represents a significant waste of resources if you continue to feed them. And as cats cannot be used for cooling, you would also have to introduce an alternative cooling system such as lizards or other cold-blooded animals.

<comment><USER17> In addition to vet bills there is grief at their passing. Nobody talks years later about that wonderful heater they had back in 1998 and how despite the furnace repair bills, they'd do it all over again just because of how it made the most pleasing sound when it ran, almost like a cats purr.

<comment><USER27> I wouldn't be surprised if someone does reminisce about such a thing!

Bizarrely I was thinking recently about an extremely lamentable performance of a storage heater 20years back. It wasn't even my heater!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This surely should give some credit to the venerable old Solar Cat Book:

[https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Cat-Book-Jim- Augustyn/dp/089815...](https://www.amazon.com/Solar-Cat-Book-Jim- Augustyn/dp/0898150183)

(Which would evidently make me an alarming amount of money if I could find my old copy of it...)

</comment><comment><USER45> Then there was the couple who got a kitten. The first night it woke up down around the husband's ankles. It started to walk forward until it found its path blocked. It then dug into his thighs to climb out, and found itself launched from the bed along with husband and blankets.

(Source: the ex-wife. I don't think the kitten contributed to the breakup of the marriage, though.)

</comment><comment><USER22> Panel heaters don't spew up on my laptop or piss on my £1500 TV, so I'd say pannel heaters are.

</comment><comment><USER46> A bullmastiff easily puts off as much heat as another human (maybe two) and doubles as an alarm clock.

<comment><USER26> Our cat acts as an alarm clock. Pretty close to 5:30 every day. The problem is that no one in the house needs to get up at 5:30 (except the person that doesn't want the cat to shit inside).

<comment> mark-r We have litter boxes that operate 24/7\. The problem is when the cats run out of food at 5:30.

<comment><USER47> Our cat gets me up at about 6:30 just because he can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I wonder... if you feed a cat more, it will become bigger, and so it will produce more heat.

<comment><USER49> Assume a spherical cat. As the cat gets bigger, the surface to volume ratio goes down, so the cat gets hotter. This will lower its metabolism, which means that the food calories increasingly go toward storage, which makes the cat get even larger. Asymptotically speaking, the cat tends to become a furry blob of melted lard.

<comment><USER50> Can you come to my farm? I have a problem. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_cow)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> 4x5-Guy Cats, definitely.

Friendlier then a panel heater, and contrary to popular opinion they are social animals.

<comment><USER51> > Friendlier then a panel heater

Depends on the cat, no?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> But what happens if there's an unlimited supply of mice?

<comment><USER53> Smaller animals produce more heat per unit volume, and meat isn't a very efficient form of energy transfer, so you're probably better off filling the house with mice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Cat lady was on to something.

<comment><USER55> I assume you are referencing The Simpsons. If so, you shouldn't be down voted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> $675 for 2250kWh of electricity? They're doing something wrong.

That's 30 cents per kwh of _heat_. Even if you just use resistive heating you beat that in every state, and probably most of the rest of the world.

But it's better than that, because that's heat not electricity. 4 watts of heat transfer for 1 watt of electricity is reasonable with a heat pump, so it's $1.20, or if you consider that co-efficient of performance (COP) is typically measured for cooling and we should be counting the electrical waste heat here a COP of 5, which makes their number $1.50 per kwh.

<comment><USER3> >Even if you just use resistive heating you beat that in every state, and probably most of the rest of the world.

New Zealand does not have states. You are likely also confusing NZD with USD. The price listed seems entirely reasonable when you understand this.

<comment><USER56> Ah, good point. I just assumed that unqualified dollars on the internet meant "USD"...</comment></comment></comment>


Tesla races past $100B in market valuation - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-stocks/tesla-races-past-100-billion-in-market-valuation-idUSKBN1ZL24Z <comment><AUTHOR> I for the life of me cannot figure out what could possibly justify this valuation for Tesla. Sure, their cars are pretty great, they have a ravid fanbase, and they have a pretty entertaining CEO who excels at driving interest in the company. They would need to execute perfectly and deliver more cars to customers than Volkswagen in a few years to justify such a valuation right now, and I just don't see that happening for quite some time.

<comment><USER2> Tesla is the Apple of the auto industry. They are getting stellar customer satisfaction ratings, which is translating into brand loyalty[1]. They've built an ecosystem between their above-average EV hardware, industry-leading software (with frequent improvements), and a top-notch charging network.

I can see some automakers matching them on hardware, but they have a huge lead in software. Traditional car manufacturers update software at a glacial pace and, aside from Mercedes' recent voice control system, I haven't seen anything come close.

Also, Musk is right: no one else has even come close to matching the 2012 Model S. Tesla's lead is starting to look unassailable (in the medium term).

Not to mention their foothold in China, which can only get stronger with the introduction of a Chinese-designed model.

[1] [https://cleantechnica.com/2019/01/09/tesla-has-the- highest-c...](https://cleantechnica.com/2019/01/09/tesla-has-the-highest- customer-loyalty-of-all-car-brands/)

<comment><USER3> One thing Tesla doesn't have is the lock in that Apple has. If you are using iPhoto, iWatch and iMessage, switching to another manufacturer is hugely disruptive.

I totally agree that Tesla's software chops are light years ahead.

<comment><USER4> SuperCharging seems to be the play to build up some lock in. Not sure how successful it will be, but I can definitely see it encouraging repeat purchases

<comment><USER5> I would disagree. Tesla's Supercharger originated years before the industry settled on the CCS Connectors and well before CCS Combo connectors came about. At it's inception it was technically superior to anything available.

When the EU settled on Combo 2, Tesla started shipping Model 3s with it as well as updating Superchargers.

The US market is a very different environment than Europe and still hasn't adopted a common standard. The 2020 Nissan Leaf ships with J1772 and CHAdeMO options which are incompatible with the CCS Combo 1 other automakers are shipping. That means a charging station needs to have at least 2 different connectors, 3 if it wants to offer the fastest possible charging because while J1772 chargers are compatible with CCS equipped cars, CCS Chargers are not backward compatible with J1772 vehicles.

Tesla owners are not locked into Superchargers and are able to charge at other chargers via adapters. All Teslas in the US come with a J1772 adapter, and you can purchase a CHAdeMO adapter.

Superchargers are also generally located along highways to facilitate long road trips, something most other EVs are incapable of even if the infrastructure existed.

Tesla sold more EVs in the US in 2019 than all other auto manufacturers combined. The next two best selling EVs (Leaf and Bolt) don't even share a common connector. Building out a charging network that's compatible with other EVs would only serve to benefit their competition. As it stands the Supercharger is a nonbinding value add for any Tesla owner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> All I see is verbal narratives that don't justify the price. Just saying that Tesla is good company, grows fast, has advantage, is not enough. Everything can be overvalued.

Narratives without numbers are just as valid for $100B valuation as they are for $500B or $1 Trillion.

Has any Tesla investor done the investor math justifying the price compared against SP500 Index Fund for 6% total return for example.

Even if Tesla's revenue and profit margin equal Toyota 10 years from now, I can't see it being worth $100B today. Permanently higher product margins and no viable competition?

<comment><USER7> > Has any Tesla investor done the investor math justifying the price compared > agaomst SP500 Index Fund for 6% total return for example.

Come on, no one does this for any stock. No stock has a value exactly in-line with math would tell you. Stocks like Amazon have been completely overvalued (as compared to what math tells you) for close to 20 years. If you haven't yet learned that stock markets are based more around hype and emotions than math, don't invest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So about the same as Ford, GM and FiatChrysler combined. Crazy times. Wow even Uber market cap is higher than each of those three. Feels like 1999.

<comment><USER9> WRT Uber, market seems to value recurring revenue streams higher than non recurring streams (ie average customer buys a new car every 7 years, likely from different manufacturers, but an Uber customer uses the product a few times per month). Auto makers could be valued more highly if they can sell subscriptions to something.

<comment><USER10> Tesla recently started billing $10/mo for internet service[1] (might be at a break-even price). They've also started to release in-app DLC ($2k) that makes your car accelerate quicker[2]

[1] [https://www.tesla.com/support/connectivity](https://www.tesla.com/support/connectivity)

[2] [https://electrek.co/2019/12/18/tesla-acceleration-boost- upgr...](https://electrek.co/2019/12/18/tesla-acceleration-boost-upgrade- leaks-model-3/)

<comment><USER11> Most of the major auto makers are trying to sell various tack-on services to get that ARR honey. Car-based internet is one of them.

It's tough though: most people don't care about car based internet when their phone already has it.

It doesn't feel like anyone has yet found a recurring revenue stream for vehicles that has met any actual demand.

<comment><USER12> I did not purchase the GM connectivity because it didn't provide any value, the features were lame or useless and it was no loss not having them after the trial period ended.

The Tesla connectivity is really part of the whole car experience and I would probably be willing to pay quite a bit more, I was surprised by how reasonable the price was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't know how to value a stock, but after riding in my friend's Tesla a few times on road trips. I seriously doubt I'll buy a ICE car ever again unless for specific purposes (mini-van). I know 10 people who owns Tesla, the 6 or so friends I've spoken about it feel the same way as I do. If this keeps up, I think Tesla's stock price is under valued.

<comment><USER14> The Model-X is really like a mini-van. High price, but similar functionality. Seats five adults + two kids. Maybe Tesla will drop the price over time. I think Elon Musk built it as the car he would want to take his family around in. He later said he regretted building that model as it took too long to develop and set back introducing the model three by a year or two.

<comment><USER13> Don't the kids seats face backwards?

<comment><USER15> That was an option initially for Model S. Two backwards facing jump seats for kids. They don't appear to offer that anymore, probably hoping you'll by an X instead. X has 2 regular forward facing seats in the third row.

<comment><USER14> Or maybe Elon Musk wanted to be able to fit his whole family in the S and when the X came out that was no longer needed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Given the expected improvements in battery efficiency over time and the brand Tesla built for itself as THE company to buy from if you want an EV, I would say Tesla's best days are yet to come.

<comment><USER17> Spot on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The biggest advantage they have is their supercharging network. Every manufacturer is focusing on ADAS and electric cars but no one is focusing on the network. That is their biggest advantage and the only reason to buy a Tesla, granted their cars are great but without the network it's just an expensive commute car.

<comment><USER19> Something I've never understood is why you would want your auto manufacturer to own energy stations. Why wouldn't you just leave that up to the gas stations?

<comment><USER20> I have incredibly little faith in industries to establish standards nowadays. Every car manufacturer will eventually make their own charging network, all with their own proprietary connectors. Any aftermarket connector to try and work for all of them will be sued out of existence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am ready for an electric vehicle - but I can't get over how much I dislike the interior of the Model 3 and Y. I hate the single-giant-touchscreen interface they have settled on. I get it, it's cheap for them to produce _and_ it looks 'futuristic.' I firmly believe physical knobs and buttons are better for most things in a car. The Model S and Model X are better, but they're pretty much out of my price range.

I also want a proper SUV/truck - the Model X/Y don't cut it, and don't get me started on the cybertruck...

<comment><USER22> I'm convinced that the Model 3 interior is already designed for a self-driving future. The screen is meant to show movies not gauges.

<comment><USER21> I agre with you - but after seeing the progress of self-driving vehicles over the last few years, I think we're still many years away from 100% hands-off, sleep-in-the-back-seat self-driving vehicles.

It's been a very quick ramp up to 90% self-driving capability, but the last 10% is going to take a lot longer than people realize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> All the people who had the balls to sell TSLA short have already gotten hurt in the come-up, and although everyone thinks this market as a whole is going to correct soon, nobody wants to take the risk of calling a top.

So yeah, expect the name with 14%+ short interest to keep rallying in this market, for the near term.

One thing I do wonder about is how the roll-off of tax credits will affect their US sales.

<comment><USER6> Is there any hard data showing that someone significant amount of short selling is caused by speculation and it's not hedging?

Short selling is used used as a hedge against downside risk of a long position. It's reasonable strategy for big investors who have huge stake on Tesla to short sell to manage the risk.

>A "short sell against the box" is also known as "shorting against the box." Sellers use this technique when they do not actually want to close out their position on a stock. The strategy is generally used by investors who believe the stock is due for a fall in price, but do not wish to sell because they believe the fall is temporary and the stock will rebound quickly.

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sellagainstthebox.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sellagainstthebox.asp)

<comment><USER24> Short selling, by definition, means you don't own the stock when you sell it. Investors with huge stakes in Tesla would just sell, not short sell.

Buying a put option would be how big investors manage downside risk, or possibly selling covered calls.

<comment><USER6> Short selling against stock you own is called short sell against the box.

>A "short sell against the box" is also known as "shorting against the box." Sellers use this technique when they do not actually want to close out their position on a stock. The strategy is generally used by investors who believe the stock is due for a fall in price, but do not wish to sell because they believe the fall is temporary and the stock will rebound quickly.

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sellagainstthebox.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sellagainstthebox.asp)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The article doesn't mention (or I've missed it) the short squeeze aspect which is definitely one of the drivers.

[https://investorplace.com/2020/01/play-tesla-stock-short- squ...](https://investorplace.com/2020/01/play-tesla-stock-short-squeeze/)

<comment><USER26> from that link: >"We are encouraged by Tesla's execution and think it deserves to be among the world's most valuable auto companies, and is perhaps the most important auto company in the world given its EV leadership. However, we think investors will be presented with more attractive opportunities to own the stock in the future," Jonas said.

It's that "opportunities to own the stock in the future part" that got me. People just want to own the stock. Tesla has gotten big enough so it is pretty unlikely to fail. Customers love the product, there are several "it is the future" features. People want to own a part of that. I don't think many people are selling because of that. Even if it is really expensive right now.

<comment><USER25> > Tesla has gotten big enough so it is pretty unlikely to fail. Customers love > the product, there are several "it is the future" features. People want to > own a part of that.

Wasn't that also true eight months ago? The stock was trading then at $180 rather than $590.

<comment> grey-area The market is often irrational and inefficient.

<comment><USER25> Of course!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you're wondering what could possibly justify $100B, think in terms of "What if Tesla put all the other car companies out of business?"

This isn't as unlikely as it seems: [https://twitter.com/whyvert/status/1219288360096694273](https://twitter.com/whyvert/status/1219288360096694273)

Trucking revenue was $700B in 2017. There's a lot of room to grow.

<comment><USER28> He's comparing the most popular car from Tesla to some of the least-popular cars from the other manufacturers. Audi sold 200k cars in 2019, but they were SUVs, not sedans. I would guess the Model 3 sales will crater when the Model Y comes out.

<comment><USER27> I wonder how we'd generate a fairer graph. Is the data available anywhere? (Ideally the raw data of sales by manufacturer bucketed by vehicle type.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Beyond the expected comments about Tesla being the iPod of the auto industry, I personally feel like these types of valuations during the beginning of an economical slowdown can be judged by the duck test. If it looks like a bubble, and sounds like a bubble, it will probably pop like a bubble. Unfortunately, most of the time this opinion will be grouped together with "Tesla haters", of which I'm definitely not one. I love Tesla and I want them to succeed, but runaway valuations based on hopes and dreams are normal in a bubble, and when you look around I see a lot more factors saying "yes" than those saying "no" when I wonder if this is another tech bubble or not. When valuations will level out though, noone knows.

<comment><USER30> What makes you think it is runaway valuation? And could that same reasoning be applied to Google, Amazon, Apple if we go back in time when they were just finding their footing?

As someone who drives a model 3 on autopilot everyday I would say the stock is rather underpriced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If you check out some of the automotive AI companies, you will see half a dozen names like Nuro, Aurora, Momenta, TuSimple, Pony, Zoox. There are more in the neigbourhood with tech like lidars, computer vision and so on.

Those companies has literally NOTHING beyond software and early prototypes, but they still are valued at _billions_ of dollars each. So, compared to them, what should be a valuation of a profitable company with large scale production, foothold in China, massive and ever growing real life datasets and so on and so on?

<comment><USER32> Probably less than the combined valuation of GM and Ford when each sells an order of magnitude more cars than Tesla.

[https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2019-u-s-auto-sales-figures- by...](https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2019-u-s-auto-sales-figures-by-brand/)

Even if we consider that a stock valuation indicates what we THINK a company might be worth in the far far future it doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER31> This is exactly my point: you are valuing TSLA as a car maker, and I along with the market prefer to value it as tech company.

<comment><USER32> What is tech about it? Cars and batteries aren't software you can easily make endless clones of and sell over and over again.

<comment><USER31> Actually, lot of Tesla cars is software, it is wastly superior to anything on the market right now, and it is worth to mention they are updating it quite frequently. Also there are datasets, like I said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Given that they previously had a surprise profit in the last quarter, there is also a degree of risk in what happens in the next quarter as they have been unprofitable for years despite huge revenues.

Normally, I would stay away from throwing money at anything that is at an all time high (ATH) and would sell now or close to less than the ATH price at this point before it starts to dive with a wave of sellers.

</comment><comment><USER34> I dunno. I want a Tesla as my next car and a lot of folks have said similarly. I am tired of getting gas every 2 weeks or so and I am really tired of oil changes. If I can charge at home and at work that seems to be just right. I'd probably still have a bigger gas family hauler but day to day a Tesla.

<comment><USER35> Unless your commute is >50 miles one-way, there's no need to charge at work unless its incredibly convenient. I use a standard wall plug to charge my Model 3 at home and still I'm back to full in under 12 hours after work. If you want to bring that down to 2 hours, you can get an RV plug or a home EV charger installed.

If there's always an open charger at work, go for it, but I think people still overestimate how often they'll need to charge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Book value, for reference, is closer to $32-ish dollars a share.

</comment><comment><USER37> How is Tesla worth more than Ford? Their F-150 alone outsells all Tesla models combined

<comment><USER38> Future profitability is how equities are priced. Ford is expected to not be (very) profitable while Tesla is. Number of units sold is irrelevant.

<comment><USER37> Tesla has a much greater chance of collapsing. Their operating and net incomes are negative. Meanwhile Ford is rolling in money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The valuation started climbing the second half of the year after the good production and sales numbers were published. But it had already plateaud, then the China megafactory presentation happened and the little dance that Elon made, seemed to help grab some attention there. This is enterely my (completely ignorant) guess, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least, if most of the recent shares buyers were chinese. Is there any way to look were the buy orders are coming from?

</comment><comment><USER40> Key answer is margin , their margin is high , traditional Automakers - low . With things like cyber truck , the gap is getting bigger.

<comment><USER41> My speculation (and this is all speculation at the end of the day to some degree) is I also think the success of other companies impact each other, such as the recent successful SpaceX abort test. For homework one night I will run an analysis showing the rise and fall of Tesla and SpaceX stock over each other mapped to positive news. I am hypothesizing there is a correlation.

<comment><USER24> SpaceX is not publicly traded, so there's no stock price to use for such an analysis

<comment><USER41> My company is also not publicly traded, but rest assured investors and analysts still attach a valuation to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Just looking at the current revenue, the valuation of Tesla seems increadible high. But there are quite a few reasons for the optimism connected to Tesla.

Tesla by a fair margin owns the market for electric cars. So anyone who thinks that electric cars are the future, should expect Tesla to do quite well. All big car companies are trying to keep up with Tesla in electric car tech and additionally, if the transition comes, are burdened with a lot of production facilities for ICE cars.

Tesla is also much more than just cars, they have their own charging infrastructure, battery manufacturing, might play a big role in cell manufacturing going forward and are getting important in the energy sector, which might overtake the car business one day.

Also, Tesla is growing exponentially. This gives a lot of growth fantasy, that they might get to the size of Amazon one day, which would mean a multiple of stock value compared today.

But most importantly, and that is the reason they have such a strong support amongst their current and potential customers: they keep innovating. A bit like Apple of the old, if they announce a new product, prepare to see something really new. While traditional car manufacturers keep iterating on their products, Tesla has completely new things, just think of the Cybertruck. Which other car annoucement got that much press coverage as the Cybertruck? Also, the Semi could get huge.

There are also some very technical factors driving the recent raise of the stock: there have been quite a few good, if not great news (Q4 sales numbers, Gigafactory 3 operating within 1 year of the building start, Gigafactory 4 planned). Then there is still a huge amount of stock shorted, so while it not might be a full short squeeze, the shorts need to cover the stocks they shorted. Finally, Tesla might join the S&P 500, which means, that a lot of institutions have to buy Tesla stock, which will drive it up further, at least short-time.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is near the market valuation on IBM. [https://seekingalpha.com/article/4318281-ibm-turnaround- is](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4318281-ibm-turnaround-is)

Watch for some adjustments when people take (legal or publicity) action over troublesome app and website design.

[https://twitter.com/tedstein/status/1144270122959417346](https://twitter.com/tedstein/status/1144270122959417346)

[https://twitter.com/tedstein/status/1219406746868953088](https://twitter.com/tedstein/status/1219406746868953088)

</comment><comment><USER44> I would just like to point out this is 75% of Bitcoin's market cap, and at this point I'm not sure what the bubble is anymore. Maybe both? Or maybe TSLA proves BTC's demand could have been genuine?

Graph: [https://twitter.com/cedivad/status/1220032154912088064](https://twitter.com/cedivad/status/1220032154912088064)

</comment><comment><USER45> I think it's great more technology will come from it

</comment><comment><USER46> Is Tesla using image recognition to make a driver profile of every number plate Tesla detects in the wild?

<comment><USER47> Why would they do that?

<comment><USER46> Would that be a big part of the solution to the self driving car puzzle?

<comment><USER48> Shared across the entire state of California: "037-ADD brakes randomly for squirrels."</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Node.js is Perfectly Fine And Probably You Don't Need it - <AUTHOR> http://ruoyusun.com/2013/03/31/node-js-is-perfectly-fine-and-probably-you-dont-need-it.html

<comment><USER2> The author is arguing against learning new languages / concepts by rewriting existing apps.

I'd argue that rewriting existing apps is a _great_ way to learn a new language. By removing the app-specific learning, you can focus on the language. Even better, since you have two implementations of the same app, comparing language concepts is easy.</comment>


The EU is beginning to believe the UK wants Brexit trade talks to fail - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/brexit-trade-talks-eu-uk-negotiations-fail-transition-period-2020-5 <comment><USER2> "Beginning to"?

I thought that was accepted fact at this stage.

Super short arguably impossible deadline, little progress, then COVID happens and the UK insists keeping said deadline anyway?

Meanwhile the UK home press is hitting their population with quality gems like:

>EU civil war erupts: States furious as Barnier poised to surrender [0]

Anyone expecting in-good-faith negotiations is in for a surprise.

[0] [https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1287373/Brexit-news- Michel...](https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1287373/Brexit-news-Michel- Barnier-UK-EU-trade-talks-fishing-rights-latest-update/amp)

</comment><comment><USER3> There is no point discussing anything about the UK's brexit process until the deadline is either passed, or imminent, as has been shown time and time again. The transition agreement the UK is currently in was meant to be 21 months originally. The UK spent 10 months of that time deciding whether they actually agreed to _have_ the 21 month transition.

</comment><comment><USER4> Everyone observing the topic knew this 2 years ago, but that's first time someone important said it out loud.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I'm in the US and only have relatively vague knowledge from some youtubers, and my response to this title was along the lines of "well, duh".

From what I remember the terms set by the EU would've put the UK in a worse position than what caused Brexit in the first place, making people steadily lean more and more towards a "just get it over with, no-deal Brexit".

<comment><USER6> I think "terms set by the EU" is framing. One could also call it "terms negotiated between the EU and the UK", and I think that's closer to the truth.

The UK's position _"we want to keep free trade, but don't want to abide to the rules that go with it, and there definitely can't be a border between the UK and Ireland in Northern Ireland, but there must be one between Europe and the UK"_ won elections at home, but they never could have expected the EU to accept them.

<comment><USER7> There's some weird delusory arrogance amongst BoJo and some large chunk of conservatives (and some chunk of the electorate) that we're still special and a world power. We're not, haven't been for a while. Being british is not the magic incantation it once was. People need to grow up.

\- a brit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The more interesting question is what the path from here to a united Ireland looks like. Under No Deal Brexit that's essentially assured as the outcome in the opinion of people I know who grew up on the island or lived much of their lives there. Change could be paused indefinitely while both parts of the island were anyway members of the EU but that can't last now.

Is there a peaceful route? Or will the Troubles be reignited?

</comment><comment><USER9> When no-deal looks as appeling as the deals being offered, this was an eventuality. I think many knew this going in. I doubt, however, that this is purely due to foot-dragging by the current government, and more to do with some hard-won lack of trust on both sides of the negotiating table. Both the UK and the EU made some unfortunte moves, shady deals, and asinine assertions, in the brexit adventure that will likely poison the well for years to come. Until a compelling (military or financial) reason comes along, I expect the situation to mostly remain the same.

</comment><comment><USER10> But why? From my very limited knowledge on this, it seems everyone is saying that a no-deal crash out will be bad economically. So is it just ideology (dare I say dogmatism) from the Johnson government at this point?

<comment> noir-york A mix of tactics and politics.

While Brexit is bad economically, the political argument is different.

<comment><USER7> eh? politics = economics, pretty much

<comment> noir-york politics = economics, pretty much?!

I'm afraid you are seriously mistaken. Just take court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament.

Politics is very much not economics, at least when it comes to Brexit.

<comment><USER7> People vote with their wallet, right or wrong.

As for "court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament", given the way the government has abused its powers at times, I'd like a higher court than the UK one.

BTW I did raise a question illegality by the UK government with the EU. Stuff started to get done. The UK government's standard brush-off to being challenged on something they don't want to answer to, is "it's not in the public interest". Which is bullshit.

If the UK government wasn't so tossy and incompetent, I might be a lot more sympathetic to "court jurisdiction and supremacy of parliament"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As EU citizen I'm not worried about this. First, the UK is smaller than the EU so the burden of a no deal is larger for them than for us. Second and by far more important, there are plenty of countries outside the EU and we trade with all of them. We'll keep trading with the UK too. My only wish was that they left at least one year earlier (when they should have). We would have already settled many issues by now.

</comment><comment><USER12> As a French this is infuriating.

Brexit will have an impact on us and the UK. Fine. Now get out and the one who is most interested will be back with negotiations.

I fully understand that there will be impacts. As of now it looks like two old persons who are making their live miserable, but in the name of some vague conventions do not want to divorce.

</comment><comment><USER13> UK knows it won't end well either way. But if the talks fail it'll be drastic enough to blame the EU for everything. Same people voted for Brexit will buy that too.

</comment><comment><USER14> The current settlement is unstable and the uncertainty it causes will ultimately (given enough time) cause more damage than a 'no deal' outcome. Therefore while knowledgeable people can disagree about timing, it nonetheless means that worst-case scenario for the UK is not the one the EU wants it to be.

</comment><comment><USER15> The EU has pretty good evidence for this - the UK won't even agree to any realistic terms, where "realistic" is defined as not only giving the EU everything they want now but also anything they might want in the future, making them the ones who unilaterally decide how the deal is interpreted, and giving them and only them the ability to punish the UK for perceived violations of the deal.

I'm not sure this belongs on HN though. As you might gather, this is 100% politics in its purist form.

<comment><USER16> Do you have a source?

<comment> noir-york Just take a look at the EU's fisheries position which is basically the status quo as if the UK had never left the EU.

Which is crazy; either the UK has left the EU and so cannot enjoy the same market access as a member, and the EU correspondingly has reduced access to UK market, or else there is full access for both parties.

Source: [https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-fishing-in-troubled- wa...](https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-fishing-in-troubled-waters-in- brexit-talks/)

<comment><USER17> The EU fisheries position is simply that the UK gets no special favours. The problem the UK faces is that the fish they catch are varieties that are mostly sold to European markets because UK consumers don't want them. Now they want the benefits of their own fisheries policy and to somehow magically get free access to the EU market to sell those fish they catch.

Oh, and a large chunk of the fishing rights to those waters were sold by UK fishermen to EU fishermen several decades ago.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


This Weird Globe-Folding Map Isn't Perfect, but It's Close - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/11/weird-globe-folding-map-isnt-perfect-close/ <comment><USER2> Are globes not available anymore? It seems like all the bitching about projections could go away if we just had more globes.</comment>


Programming Windows 6th Edition - <AUTHOR> http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2012/02/Programming-Windows-6th-Edition.html <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who thinks it is sad that he is writing a book about programming with C# and XAML? I mean those are great technologies to work with, but his expertise is on C++ and native apps. And we need more native apps, not less.

<comment><USER3> > Am I the only one who thinks it is sad ...

I think it's fantastic.

> And we need more native apps, not less.

Do you mean "managed apps"?

In that case, you're either talking about special case apps that require low level access or low level management (ex: for performance reasons), drivers, special libraries, or might just be holding on to the past.

.NET, C#, and XAML are the highest legitimate programming abstraction layer in Windows and _are_ the way most Windows apps are made these days.

The unerlining management system (and OS) is written in C/C++ and exposes the win32 API. That's always there.

Rarely does anyone make C or unmanaged C++ apps calling the win32 api when you can have .NET Framework and CLR do that for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another good book for Windows is "Windows Internals" from Mark Russinovich and David A Solomon (SysInternals folks).

It's not for writing applications, but rather understanding how Windows works (The Cache Manager section for example)

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems this is being published later this year.

Can anyone point to any good resources for a mostly Unix-based programmer getting up to speed with all the new technology coming in Windows 8 that are available now?

<comment><USER6> AFAIK there isn't a book on Metro, the new interface in Windows 8. Your best source is the documentation with the SDK.

On WPF (the latest on .Net UI) I'd recommend Matthew MacDonald's "Pro WPF in C# 2010: Windows Presentation Foundation in .NET 4".

On Win32 programming (the native code API to Windows) the best source is Petzold himself. It is the Windows equivalent of W. Richard Stevens books for Unix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 5 and C# are currently propping up my monitors. Guess I can get a third monitor now. ( _Kidding_ \- love Petzold.)

</comment><comment><USER8> So that means no up to date book on Win32 API even now? I'm not into Windows programming, but from what I know Petzold is the only book that people usually follow for learning Win32 programming.</comment>


Beating the odds: An interview with Ed Thorp (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-thorp-20170217-story.html <comment><USER2> His autobiography, A Man for All Markets, is terrific. It has wonderful stories of his childhood chemistry pranks, his blackjack adventures, his work with Claude Shannon on a wearable computer for beating roulette, and his quant trading (which included discovering Black Scholes option pricing model, but just using it to price option, not publishing as well as stat arb.

<comment><USER3> His book is great. Loved the blackjack and roulette sections.</comment></comment>


One Billion Heartbeats - <AUTHOR> http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/5701/does-every-species-get-around-a-billion-heartbeats-on-average <comment><USER2> I consider this to be an instance of the old adage (Mar's law) that "everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat marker".

Edit: fixed a typo.

<comment><USER3> Took me a second to understand that you meant "marker" not "market".

<comment><USER2> Damnit, fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Actually, there is a physical mechanism in cellular life that sets a lifespan limit, by roughly constraining the number of replications most differentiated cell lines in a body can support. Thus the correlation between slower metabolism and longer lifespan. The 'number of heartbeats' observation is a consequence of that correlation.

The mechanism is a little too complicated to describe accurately here. You can find a great deal on it with google search terms "telomere fraying" or "telomere fuse".

Very roughly, every chromosome has a 'telomere' structure at each end that acts to prevent the DNA double helix strands from 'fraying'. In the single cell embryo these structures are several thousand bases long. In every cell division after that, some random number of the telomere bases fail to be replicated. So the telomeres get shorter and shorter with each replication. In a cell where the telomere is all gone on a chromosome, genes at the end of that chromosome get progressively destroyed - thus (depending whether it's an active gene) wrecking some aspect of the cell's metabolism. With many different chromosomes (eg 26 in humans), 2 ends per chromosome, shifting gene arrangements, huge statistical populations of cells with individual telomere failures, and multiple lines of differentiated cells all replicating at differing rates, it's no wonder 'aging' shows such complex and variable symptoms.

I suspect if someone did a study of multiple species examining embryonic telomere lengths, average telomere loss per cell replication, replication (metabolic) rate, and average lifespan, there'd be a function of those factors giving a much more precise connection than 'number of heartbeats'.

</comment><comment><USER5> On the first chart, we see that humans are definitely an outlier. Slide us back to the left and see where we would "naturally" be without modern medicine and we should live around 35 years. This lines up nicely with historical data[1].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy_variation_over_time)

<comment><USER6> Except "historical data" is not what where we would "naturally" be, since life expectancy is dragged down by high child mortality rate.

<comment><USER7> Not to be snarky, but what are the child mortality rates for a monkey or a hamster?

<comment><USER8> This doesn't answer your question, but when we evolved to walk upright a significant level of risk was added to childbirth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It took about 10 seconds for me to stop searching for the X button to close the popup and realize this is how the site is laid out.

<comment><USER10> That was torture. I wish I was kidding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In July 1969, just before the first manned lunar landing, _Life_ magazine had a special issue about the astronauts. Many of the astronauts were profiled. All of them did some sort of athletics --- running, racketball, etc. --- _except_ for Neil Armstrong, who was quoted as saying (paraphrasing from memory): _I believe every man comes into this world with a finite number of heartbeats allocated to him, and I'm damned if I'm going to waste any of mine running around doing exercises._

<comment><USER12> Apparently, according to wikiquote it's misattributed to him:

<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong#Misattributed>

<comment><USER11> Then _Life_ magazine was among the misattributors; I read the quote when it was published (and was delighted, because it matched my own attitude about athletics).

<comment><USER12> I am as disappointed as you are. I found this note on wikiquote as I was looking for the original reference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I thought that it's a pretty well known fact that small dogs live longer. Can't find a really good link, but this one is OK: [http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/features/dogs-and-life-span- which...](http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/features/dogs-and-life-span-which-breeds- live-longest)

<comment><USER14> That "stat" surprised me as well -- small dogs @ 10 years and large ones at 17? Uh, no.

Great danes and Irish wolfhounds (and other big breeds as well, AFAIK) only average something sad like 7 years, whereas those little yappy toy poodles average twice that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is a great paper written by Geoffrey West called "Life's Universal Scaling Laws" [http://biology.unm.edu/jhbrown/Documents/Publications/West&#...](http://biology.unm.edu/jhbrown/Documents/Publications/West&Brown2004PT.pdf)

I was under the impression he was one of the first to touch on this topic, so I find it weird he wasn't listed.

He also applied this to city growth. Which is much more interesting, considering cities aren't biological, strictly speaking.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/magazine/19Urban_West-t.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/magazine/19Urban_West-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER16> I feel for the hamsters. I'd have a 400+ bpm too if I knew I'd only live for 3 years.

But being serious, I'd like to see the the variance on those numbers. Bpm's of ~60 are normal for some, while others hover around ~90+. So within the range of what's considered a normal heartrate (60 - 100), numbers can vary by as much as 66%.

</comment><comment><USER17> Some notes: Birds follow a slightly different power law and consequently live much longer. However, they do still follow a similar relationship.

Interesting exceptions in mammals are humans and (surprisingly) bats, both of which beat the curve pretty dramatically. Several mechanisms have been proposed for this exception including brain size and several specific proteins.

If anyone is interested in some more mechanistic or literature driven explanations, here is a good starting point <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC128563/>

<comment><USER18> Yes I was shocked to find out that parrots run an average heartrate of 350 bpm or so, for 40 years. 7 billion heartbeats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> On a pet peeve tangent... I dislike the "Six Sigma" meme because, having a semimechanical heart, one-in-a-million failures would mean I'd be dead by now. I need one-in-a-billion reliability at minimum.

</comment><comment><USER20> This was a 'fun fact' I was told at a young age. I'm not ashamed to admit that I took it literally and spent a few months of my childhood fearing anything that made my heart race.

<comment><USER21> Considering that fear does just that, this seems like a miserable existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So that suggests I should work out at little as possible so my 1 billion heartbeats last 200 years instead of 75?

<comment><USER23> But working out lowers your resting heart rate. So you should work out as much as you can!

<comment><USER24> This would be a fun one to work through. If 100 hours of working out reduced your heart rate by 1bpm (I have no idea if this is true, just sounds plausible), but during workouts you increased your BPM by 20%, where is the equilibrium?

<comment><USER25> I think you will need to refine your model. At the least, you will have to have some way to limit resting heart rate to be > 0\. Alternatively, your model suggests that person will die from 6000 hours of practice, as it would bring his resting heart rate down to zero. If you don't, your optimization run would say something like "work out for 1,000,000 hours at a cost of 100,000,000 heart beats or so. Then, enjoy an infinite life with negative resting heart rate and even lower heart rate during exercise."

You also will want to model the fact that your resting heart rate does not stay at a lower level forever after exercise.

Finally, but that's peanuts compared to the other problems: let's start with a starting rest rate of 60 BPM. Exercise for 1000 hours to bring it back to 50 BPM, and your heart rate during workouts becomes 1.2 x 50 BPM = 60 BPM? Unlikely.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Start-ups are the new rock'n'roll - and they're in danger of losing their souls - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/20/start-ups-rock-roll

<comment><USER2> God this is a piss-poor load of rubbish. Horseshit like "startup shirts are the new band shirts". who's your crack dealer? Definitely laced with chili powder.

A terribly hyperbolic article that misses the point of why syart-ups are popular with the kids, which is:

Post-GFc exonomic uncertainty. \+ Decline of the graduate job market \+ The Zuckerbeeg/Karp archetype / gold-rush mentality.</comment>


Souped-up immune cells force leukaemia into remission - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22613-soupedup-immune-cells-force-leukaemia-into-remission.html

<comment><USER2> I often comment on "promising" cancer therapies around here when people get too caught up in the hyperbole of press releases. This one however is a huge deal. For those of you following along at home, note that _actual people_ (very, very sick people) who had basically no hope using standard care had their cancer obliterated. Note that the subjects were not rodents (we have cured rodent cancer a million times) and that at least some of the people have no detectable cancer anymore. Having worked in oncology research and development in pharma, I can tell you that outcomes are never this dramatic with patient populations like this one. This is true personalized medicine. It's straight out of science fiction. The science is crazy hard and the fact that it worked is just incredible to me. There are millions of ways this could have failed (and U. Penn is no stranger to the painful failure of gene therapy firsthand in the past). (Disclaimer: I work at an institution involved in the treatment, but have nothing to do with it at all).

<comment><USER3> Thanks for putting this into perspective. I think most have gotten a little cynical about posts like this.

So now I'm all intrigued, but the article isn't working (502 error), any links to other sources?

<comment><USER4> [https://www.google.com/news?ncl=dvdxbMkYp2U55CMUg96o057NpdQw...](https://www.google.com/news?ncl=dvdxbMkYp2U55CMUg96o057NpdQwM)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This appears to build on similar work using modified T-cells against Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia from back in 2005 [1]

Fascinating stuff and it seems like all of the leukemias may fall to a strategy like this one.

One of the advantages of the use of this treatment in CLL was that patients were 'immunised' against recurrence of the cancer in the future. It seems that it is not yet known if this is the case for the treatment discussed here.

Nice to see that work is progressing by leaps and bounds in this area.

[1] <http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1103849>

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the reference - as someone with CLL you can't imagine what went through my head when I read about this and wondered how transferable the treatment would be to other blood cancers.

<comment><USER5> I hope they hurry up and bring it to the mass market.. I really hope that it will be available for you to use.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: Does Net Neutrality Decision Threaten Your Startup? - <AUTHOR>

I just heard some testimony on CSPAN regarding HR 5353 "Net Neutrality."  The testifying party (didn't catch the name) made the case that if net neutrality was not in effect when Google, Yahoo and similar companies were founded they would not be viable.  Thus, the outcome of this decision could threaten entrepreneurship.<p>So, would the argument in that testimony apply in your case?  Would a lack of net neutrality threaten your startup, your startup idea or YC and the angel community in general? <comment><USER2> In theory, the ISPs could block anything. In practice, very doubtful. So no.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think the comment in the testimony was regarding cost of "premium" bandwidth as something that would have crushed a search startup.

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems ISPs _could_ inject ads or replace ads in webpages (ie google ads) which could threaten income of many sites out there.</comment>


Futuristic Simulation Finds Self-Driving "Taxibots" Will Eliminate 90% of Cars - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/the-ferenstein-wire/futuristic-simulation-finds-self-driving-taxibots-will-eliminate-90-of-cars-open-acres-of-618a8aeff01

<comment><USER2> Something that doesn't seem to be discussed here is the insane cost of actually equipping a city with a fleet of self driving cars. Whilst a fantastic idea there's also some other things to consider – vandalisation, loading stations, etc. I'd like to see a more in depth perspective before I say yay or nay.

<comment><USER3> The thinking is that personal cars have say 5-8% utilization (how many hours a week do you drive your car?), and people still buy them. Taxibots could have something like 70% utilization, or more if people start travelling at all hours of the night. (Which they might do because taxibot rates are lower in the wee hours, perhaps.) If a household can afford to own a personal car, it can definitely afford to pay the fees for its small portion of a taxibot fleet.</comment></comment>


Amazon Simple Notification Service Now Supports SMS - <AUTHOR> http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2011/11/amazon-simple-notification-service-now-supports-sms.html

<comment><USER2> It seems pretty easy (and cheap), but it seems like it has a lot of limitations that would bug me trying to use it in a real-world situation.

For example, you'd need to have a short display name to conserve characters on SMS, but email subscribers would see that short name as well. Also, having the SMS messages automatically prefixed is kind of annoying (but I understand why they do it).

Also, email subscribers get both the subject and body of the message, while SMS subscribers get just the subject. So that means you'll probably need to put a short URL at the end of the subject line, which of course would also show up in the email subject line and look ugly.

I think this is pretty awesome for internal things like notifying sysadmins or texting you every time you get a sale, but I don't know if I would use it for anything customer-facing.

<comment><USER3> It is only in the US, 5% of the mobile world market. With the Nexmo Amazon SNS lib you can reach the rest of the world without much change of your code. of course with a direct to carrier model that reduce cost and improve deliverability. Here is more info to get started: [http://nexmo.zendesk.com/entries/20636661-get- international-...](http://nexmo.zendesk.com/entries/20636661-get- international-sms-reach-with-amazon-sns-now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How much of a threat is this to Twillio? I suppose Twillio is more for building whole systems, this is just for notifications but it'll be interesting to see how/if they react to this.

<comment><USER5> "You can now subscribe a US phone number to an SNS topic. After the subscription has been confirmed, notifications sent to the topic will be delivered to the phone as an SMS message."

Note the _US_ in there. I stopped reading at that point and couldn't care less. Hi Twilio :)

<comment><USER6> Twilio doesn't seem to support SMS outside the US, at least it doesn't in the UK.</comment></comment></comment>


Artificial and biological neurons communicate over the internet 2020 [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-58831-9.pdf <comment><USER2> The internet part is cutesy[0], but it's by far the least interesting part of the article: of course you can send data via the internet.

Can we change the post's title to the actual title of the article: Memristive synapses connect brain and silicon spiking neurons?

[0] I _really_ dislike it when people try to punch up their brain-computer interface papers by adding an "internet" component to it. Unless it's somehow latency-sensitive, the internet part adds nothing over local control and is just pure clickbait. Please don't do this. If I review your paper, I will point this out, loudly, to the editor.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is latency sensitive as the transmission protocol might substract from the usefullness. But this serves for future optimization. The title was not taken from the paper but from the nature article where the paper was initially cited.

<comment><USER2> It's bizarre though, because the latency problem is self-inflicted.

If you were going to build a brain-computer interface, why on earth would you scatter parts of it across three different countries like this? It's not exploiting a vast data center or anything, just a VLSI chip that happens to be far away. If you did have to do that, why wouldn't you directly connect all three centers instead of having a Python script(?) in the middle handing off information.

The membrane time constant of a biological neuron is also about 30 ms, which gives you a fair amount of wiggle room even in the face of lag.

Their solution seems clever, but other than a vague mention of "IoT brain implants" (please god, no), I don't see what problem it really solves.

<comment><USER3> I think there's value in measuring effectiveness of intelligence algorithms with different latencies.

<comment><USER2> Sure, but it makes a lot more sense to me to do that by intentionally delaying the input/output. You'd get a lot better control without depending on the whims of internet traffic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article does not mention the Internet once. The actual paper title is:

Memristive synapses connect brain and silicon spiking neurons

<comment><AUTHOR> It's mentioned a couple of times. Here's one: Secondly, the experiment shows successful synaptor operation over the internet and not only by wire connection.

<comment><USER4> You're right, I scrolled through and then did a word search. Must've made a typo. Anyhow, the title is not what the submission title is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been waiting for progress in this direction for a while, and this paper seems to follow naturally from what many were expecting.

I'm more excited about adding more neuroplasticity, brainpower, and easier interfacing to humans, but if you can also make it so I can train NNs on rat brainware I'll be pretty happy, too. This further opens the path to both.

</comment><comment><USER6> Important quote:

> Achieving this [communication over the Internet] is not trivial, since > issues such as handling UDP propagation delays (which are typically variable > and thus difficult to control) need to be resolved.

</comment><comment><USER7> What are good ressources / frameworks to simulate spiking neural nets on regular computing hardware?

How would a backpropagation work in such an architecture?

<comment><USER8> Here is one simulator you can use: [https://briansimulator.org/](https://briansimulator.org/)

Generally it is not known to my best knowledge how or whether the brain uses backpropagation (knowing that would be a huge result). However, several papers have been written on that topic with varying approaches. I encourage you to do a literature search if you want to dig deeper.

On this topic it is worth mentioning that it is not even known why the brain uses discrete signals (spikes) for communication.</comment></comment>