What Is The Real Reason Dell Is Discontinuing 12-inch Netbooks? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/08/why-is-dell-really-discontinuing-12-inch-netbooks/ <comment><USER3>
      Netbooks should be getting bigger, not smaller. That's what users want.

Isn't a bigger netbook just a notebook/laptop?! I don't think users really want that. Users want something in between a notebook and a handheld/smartphone.

<comment><USER4> What people want are cheaper laptops. Intel is trying to fight that trend.

<comment><USER5> Hurts sales. Intel is actually at bit of a slump now because people aren't upgrading hardware like they used to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think non-technical people are easily distinguish between a 10 inch and 12 inch screen, but do not understand that resolution is also important. The Mini 10 (not the 10v!) has the option for a 1366x768 screen, while the Mini 12 has 1280x800 screen. Resolution-wide, the Mini 10 is "bigger."

Part of this confusion might be because of Dell's pricing. When I was looking earlier this summer, the Mini 12 cost more than the Mini 10 (with the high- resolution screen), despite having similar hardware specifications.

</comment><comment><USER7> I sometimes use a netbook to code (specially in a library), and it works just fine (9"), VIM runs great on it :), and a browser like Chrome really saves a lot of screen, so I check email and everything...

 _That makes absolutely no sense, since it requires no additional hardware horsepower to power a 12-inch netbook v. a 10-inch netbook. The only difference is power usage from the bigger screen. And the two extra inches more than makes up for the shorter battery life or slightly heavier device from packing in more batteries. It only costs a few more dollars to build a 12-inch v. a 10-inch netbook, and users get a bigger screen with the same performance._

Since when Arrington is a hardware specialist? :)

<comment><USER8> Is coding on a netbook comfortable? What if you wanted to code for more than a few hours? Does the lack of screen space get to you or have you figured out an efficient configuration? (If you have, could you please post a screenshot?)

I already have a MacBook, but I rarely take it out because I rarely do any coding outside my place and lugging the whole thing through the Metro and bus system is not exactly my idea of fun. Having a netbook that I can easily lug around the city might actually encourage me to take my code with me wherever I go.

<comment><USER7> hope you read this, screenshot: <http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/421955/netbook_vim.png>

Of course I don't think you'd enjoy coding on a small laptop (netbook), if you don't follow some recommendations (which I think are good recommendations anyways):

* limit your code to 80 cols

* limit your code to less than 400 loc

Actually on my main laptop I get 34 loc full screen (I try not to use full screen), on my Dell mini 9 I get 31, not bad at all!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's probably for profit reasons, but I thought it might be because having a 12" netbook in Dell's lineup would be blurring the lines between notebook and netbook too much, potentially confusing consumers. Does anyone else think that a 12" screen on a laptop gives people the idea that this could be their main machine? I've certainly had non-tech-savvy friends ask why they shouldn't just buy a netbook to replace their main machine (it was actually the Dell Mini 12, in one case).

It's probably the profit margin thing, though.

<comment><USER10> 12" netbooks are just too big. If it has 12" screen it better be a "fully" powered laptop.

Todays netbooks are too limited to even deserve a screen bigger than 10" and I guess the main purpose of a netbook is to be small and portable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Jeeze what a non-article. It seems he makes no point at all.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'll take a guess and say in their head first dive into the world of ultra cheap PCs they found no there there. The margin on those things are so small, one phone call can turn that money loser into a real money loser. It was one thing when bloggers and geeks were buying them. They figured it was a cheap toy you could do serious work on. But then they went mainstream and people only saw the price and not the shortcomings. Somebody gets the bright idea to blow away their partition table. Calls tech support to figure out how to restore their data, profit loss. Hardware failure, profit loss.

</comment><comment><USER13> What people want is netbooks with good keyboards. The Workpad z50 was a joy to type on, the problem was that it only had 32mb of memory and ran windows ce. I want that with a modern cpu and more ram.

<comment><USER14> I was looking for two things when I got my netbook: 1) great keyboard, 2) great battery life. By virtue of it being a netbook I figured it would already be relatively small, light, and cheap. I think the Samsung netbooks have the right formula.

My NC120 has an awesome keyboard, battery life that seems to stretch forever (8 hrs, and I have a second battery!), and it was only $400 at Amazon (+ $90 or so for the extra battery). It's not ridiculously light like some of the other netbooks out there, but light enough that I put it in my bag and forget it's there. Light enough that I can carry it around town like a spiral notebook and not feel fatigued.

Really the only issue I have with it is that the screen is glossy and I personally prefer matte. Also the windows key is on the right side for some reason. Whatever, it's still great - the screen doesn't bother me that much (still would prefer matte) and the windows key thing is totally invisible to me now. Also I've found that when I'm out at a coffee shop or something people stop me left and right to ask about it. It's interesting who asks - <USER2> folks and middle age folks.

My wife and I took it on vacation and watched movies and TV the entire flight off of iTunes. It was the slightest bit jerky at times but certainly not enough to be bothersome. As a random addition, the NC120 contains a subwoofer. Ha! Not that you can really tell.

I know I'm gushing. I'm going to stop. I don't work for Samsung, but the NC120 is truly great (I'm sure it's sister models are good too). It hits the magic keyboard/battery life/weight/cost sweet spot that makes it just feel awesome!

And yes, I can totally code, write long reports, and respond to emails, browse HN, etc on it to my heart's content. I got a little portable mouse which I rarely use, but sometimes pull out when I'm using it for a long time.

Ok, I'm stopping now. Hope it's helpful to someone out there!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Intel is probably one of the most rigorous company's in the IT business today. I believe every word they say on the pricing scheme is true.

</comment><comment><USER16> From experience (my sister-in-law and a couple of other family members), they have a high return rate. People expect them to behave like a full blown laptop but they don't.

<comment><USER17> I would be very happy with a 768x1366 10 inch screen. Currently, I use an Acer Aspire One with an 9 inch screen as my main computer. The thing is that, when at my home office, I connect it to a big monitor, a nice mouse and a keyboard.

The only part I dislike is the 600x1024 pixel screen. It's a bit on the small size and lots of programs (and websites) seem to think 768 lines is the minimum.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some good React tutorials? - <AUTHOR> I am  beginner in this whole javascript/node ecosystem. Currently i am going through express.js framework, and would like add a client-side framework/library to my repertoire.Any suggestions would be welcome. <comment><USER2> I highly recommend the Full Stack Redux Tutorial:

[http://teropa.info/blog/2015/09/10/full-stack-redux- tutorial...](http://teropa.info/blog/2015/09/10/full-stack-redux- tutorial.html)

Learning Redux from the get go means you can skip a lot of React's internal state management / lifecycle methods.

The tutorial also covers a bunch of relevant topics like TDD with React, immutable.js, and socket.io.

<comment><USER3> I'm doing that right now. One bit that was a bit confusing and I don't know if this is relevant place to be asking is on "Moving to The Next Pair" section. Like how do I know if it's okay to move to the next pair? Because in core.js it seems to pick a winner of the pair as soon as it's called. (It probably talks about this further down but this kind of threw me off)

Other than that you're right. It's one of the complete tutorial that makes TDD actually enjoyable. However, that has mostly to do with how redux and immutability has been used in the tutorial.

<comment><USER2> I was a bit confused by this as well. Later in the tutorial, you will build a separate "Results" view that shows the tally of the current vote and lets you manually move to the next vote by triggering the 'Next" Redux action. Hope that helps.

Also for those interested in more on Redux, there is an excellent Getting Started tutorial by Dan Abramov (its creator) on egghead.io:

[https://egghead.io/series/getting-started-with- redux](https://egghead.io/series/getting-started-with-redux)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sorry for the self promotion, but I wrote a few React tutorials with someone like you in mind. They're only covering the basics of React, coding directly in an html file, so they don't involve getting up and running with Node+React. But I think that should be tackled after you know the basics of React.

Building Your First React App: [https://medium.com/learning-new- stuff/building-your-first-re...](https://medium.com/learning-new- stuff/building-your-first-react-js-app-d53b0c98dc#.9jikbk8re)

Building Your Second React App: [https://medium.com/learning-new- stuff/building-your-second-r...](https://medium.com/learning-new- stuff/building-your-second-react-js-app-eb66924b3774#.7c7bgel6b)

React.JS in 8 minutes: [https://medium.com/learning-new-stuff/learn-react-js- in-7-mi...](https://medium.com/learning-new-stuff/learn-react-js- in-7-min-92a1ef023003#.w32ul3dvh)

Other than that, I always recommend the official tutorial: [https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tutorial.html](https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tutorial.html)

... and Egghead.io's videos: [https://egghead.io/series/react- fundamentals](https://egghead.io/series/react-fundamentals)

<comment><USER5> I remember doing that Egghead course over 2 years ago. Are they still valid?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am using this one and like it very much so far: [http://courses.reactjsprogram.com/courses/reactjsfundamental...](http://courses.reactjsprogram.com/courses/reactjsfundamentals/) It's by Tyler McGinnis.

<comment><USER7> +1 for Tyler and his courses. There's something great about the way he presents the knowledge I can't quite put words to. He manages to "pull back the curtain" just enough to satisfy my curiosity without allowing me to go down a tangent path of little details that contextually don't matter until later. His frank demeanor instilled a lot of trust in me from the get-go, as well, which in turn left me satisfied when he says things like, "that doesn't matter right now -- we'll get back to that when it's important." Usually in tutorials or classes it's either high or low of that mark -- either I don't believe I will end up learning about some hidden principle that ends up being important, or I'll have way too much depth dumped on me and I'll be lost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What's wrong with the official tutorial? [https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tutorial.html](https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tutorial.html)

<comment><USER9> React and Angular can get very confusing for a first timer in front end. The official tutorials leave out a lot of magic happening behind the scenes. I tried to complete the official angular tutorial and even after completing it, though I could build an app, I still didn't feel confident that I had a good understanding of Angular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm the author of [http://ReactForBeginners.com](http://ReactForBeginners.com)

I've had 4500 people take it so far and have had tons of positive feedback - take a look!

<comment><USER11> I highly recommend this course. I think Pragmatic Studio produces some of the best, highest-quality tutorials online for Ruby, Rails, and Elm. React For Beginners is not a Pragmatic Studio production, but they do endorse it, and it definitely falls into that same category of quality and excellence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> SurviveJS book, you can read it online for free: [http://survivejs.com/webpack_react/introduction/](http://survivejs.com/webpack_react/introduction/) [http://survivejs.com/](http://survivejs.com/)

Full-Stack Redux Tutorial: [http://teropa.info/blog/2015/09/10/full-stack- redux-tutorial...](http://teropa.info/blog/2015/09/10/full-stack-redux- tutorial.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> Thinking in React was the first tutorial that really triggered me an woaw. It's also quite fast to do.

[https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/thinking-in- react.html](https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/thinking-in-react.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Heres a nice intro to React that deals with JUST React, no JSX, no Webpack etc. I found it on HN the other day

[http://jamesknelson.com/learn-raw-react-no-jsx-flux- es6-webp...](http://jamesknelson.com/learn-raw-react-no-jsx-flux-es6-webpack/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I think this blog post: [http://andrewhfarmer.com/getting-started- tutorials/](http://andrewhfarmer.com/getting-started-tutorials/)

will help you to get started with react. I'm following this blog post to learn react myself.

</comment><comment><USER16> ReactJS for Stupid People is an excellent place to start:

[http://blog.andrewray.me/reactjs-for-stupid- people/](http://blog.andrewray.me/reactjs-for-stupid-people/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I found it quick to understand the ideas behind React, but it was a lot more difficult to understand how to apply that to practical problems and to 'think' in React.

React.js By Example [[http://reactkungfu.com/react-by- example/](http://reactkungfu.com/react-by-example/)] was enormously helpful in showing how to structure various different real-world apps. So if you find yourself beyond the basic CommentBox examples, but not sure how to build your own components then this might help.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not affiliated, but I subscribed to Stephen Grider's courses on Udemy and I'm quite happy with those.

<comment><USER19> Also agreed. His courses are awesome, and he takes care to explain things right the first time, rather than relying on repetition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd recommend starting with "React How To" by Pete Hunt [1] - it's one of the best collections of starter guides you'll need to get started with React.

And then you can always look at awesome-react. [2]

[1] [https://github.com/petehunt/react- howto](https://github.com/petehunt/react-howto) [2] [https://github.com/enaqx/awesome-react](https://github.com/enaqx/awesome- react)

</comment><comment><USER21> This one explains the ideas behind React very good imo. It does this by creating "Bloop" a library that kinda works likes React without stuff like the Virtual DOM. [http://jlongster.com/Removing-User-Interface- Complexity,-or-...](http://jlongster.com/Removing-User-Interface- Complexity,-or-Why-React-is-Awesome)

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's my comparison of React.js Fundamentals by Tyler McGinnis, and Learn React.js: The Basics, on Lynda.com.

[https://adtmag.com/blogs/dev-watch/2016/04/react- tutorials.a...](https://adtmag.com/blogs/dev-watch/2016/04/react- tutorials.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER23> I suspect part of the rub is that with react being only the 'V' in MVC, stand- alone tutorials leave you with only part of the picture.

And, of course, people are choosing different paths to fill in the rest of the stack. All of which pull your specific 'style' of using react in slightly different directions.

<comment><USER24> You're halfway there, because React is the V but there's no MVC. That design pattern isn't common in the ecosystem, and instead a functional, unidirectional design pattern called Flux is a better fit.

Searching for MVC trips a lot of developers up.

<comment><USER23> >>and instead a functional, unidirectional design pattern called Flux is a better fit.

And how many different frameworks are in common use to implement that pattern? :)

Edit: Also notable the the 'V' in MVC line comes from React's home page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I can only recommend two: \- The official Facebook React tutorial. It might be unsexy, but hell it's good. In fact, it's the best official documentation I've ever seen: [https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tutorial.html](https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/tutorial.html) \- React for Beginners. The only screencast that didn't make me want to fall asleep – worth every dollar: [http://reactforbeginners.com](http://reactforbeginners.com)

<comment><USER26> Fully agree. React for beginners was great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Surprised this one hasn't been mentioned yet! [http://reactfordesigners.com/labs/reactjs-introduction- for-p...](http://reactfordesigners.com/labs/reactjs-introduction-for-people- who-know-just-enough-jquery-to-get-by/)

Full of graphics and nice examples - it covers a lot of the reasons folks find react so fun to work with.

As a pro-tip: there is a lot of tooling, and things move quickly so a lot of examples on the web get outdated FAST. Don't be discouraged - it can be rough.

</comment><comment><USER28> [http://andrewhfarmer.com/getting-started- tutorials/](http://andrewhfarmer.com/getting-started-tutorials/) has a list of tutorial reviews.

I'm the author of [http://buildwithreact.com/tutorial](http://buildwithreact.com/tutorial), which Andrew says "is by far the shortest tutorial and the easiest read" :) Happy to answer any questions on twitter.

</comment><comment><USER29> I maintain a list of high-quality React and Redux-related tutorials over at [https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux- links](https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux-links). It's specifically intended to be a great starting point for anyone trying to get started learning the React ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER30> I wrote an intro to React that emphasizes it's functional/reloadable nature. [http://rigsomelight.com/2015/06/09/straightforward-live- func...](http://rigsomelight.com/2015/06/09/straightforward-live-functional- javascript-building-the-yome-widget.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> Here is my take on the subject:

[https://github.com/ustun/reactjs- introduction](https://github.com/ustun/reactjs-introduction)

There is a video at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSeurgO39Hk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSeurgO39Hk) if you are interested.

</comment><comment><USER32> The Code Cartoon guide to Redux isn't a tutorial, but it may be useful for understanding the Redux architecture that underpins React.

[https://code-cartoons.com/a-cartoon-guide-to- flux-6157355ab2...](https://code-cartoons.com/a-cartoon-guide-to- flux-6157355ab207#.y0fq06c2o)

</comment><comment><USER33> Has anybody tried this? [https://www.udemy.com/react- redux/](https://www.udemy.com/react-redux/) Is it worth the money?

<comment><USER34> I got a coupon code 50% OFF - [http://tinyurl.com/jrm25ms](http://tinyurl.com/jrm25ms)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I second the egghead.io video tutorials (paid). My team spent about a week and we're using ReactJS as our view for a Progressive WebApp for an eCommerce site in India.

</comment><comment><USER36> My usual go-to website for tutorials: [http://hackr.io/tutorials/react](http://hackr.io/tutorials/react)

</comment><comment><USER37> You could go through these demos

[https://github.com/ruanyf/react-demos](https://github.com/ruanyf/react-demos)

</comment><comment><USER38> tldr; Don't treat backend and frontend the same, they have very different concerns, also learn the things that came before frameworks, and why they were useful/included in frameworks to begin with.

While your intended backend and frontend are both javascript, they have very different concerns. I suggest you learn them in as much isolation as you can, before attempting to mix the two.

I would highly recommend that you do NOT start from learning react. React is a line in a very long story that the JS community has been living. Please strive to understand how that story started, and where react fits in, and what methodologies are being used in the libraries/frameworks that are popular today.

Rather than starting with and binding yourself to react, I'd suggest you start with the minimum you need, and progress to different libraries as you need them, and realizing the actual need/niche for frameworks.

A progression might look like this:

1) HTML+CSS+JS - Basic static, well designed pages

2) HTML+CSS+JS+jQuery - 1) + simple interactions on the page, note that too much jquery will quickly become hard to reason about

2) HTML+CSS+JS+Databinding - 1) + declarative databinding (with a framework like Knockout) will introduce some structure into DOM updates over the jquery approach

3) HTML+CSS+JS+Databinding+Routing - 2) + a realization that knockout generally aims to work on one page at a time, but obviously sites have many pages, and SPAs can be beneficial in delivering instant-feeling user experience.

4) HTML+CSS+JS+Databinding+Routing+Components - 3) + realizing the need for separation and isolation between components to keep your sanity (both knockout.js and react offer components)

5) HTML+CSS+JS+Databinding+Routing+Components+Data - 3) Handling data from the server is obviously important, backbone has an oft-praised model system, and you could also flux pattern since you're interested in react.

5) Framework ? At this point, including x libraries to do all the things that you have found make your life easier may be less preferable to using a framework. Of course, this means you'll have to deal with the cognitive overhead of a framework but at this point, you should know exactly WHY you are using a framework, and start to distinguish the difference between how different frameworks bundle the parts.

Ex. the distinction between how knockout.js does databinding, how react does it, and how angular1 does it.

Ex. The difference between react's rendering methodology and backbone's (they both use a render function to determine what will be shown -- how is react different?)

I might suggest redoing a small app like TodoMVC with all these options (you can change it up by styling the frontend differently every time or something), I think a process like that leads to a more well-balanced understanding of frontend JS.</comment>


Ask HN: What are you ways to learn new things? - <AUTHOR> This question is kept this vague intentionally to not bias your answer in any way. <comment><USER2> By jumping right into them. Usually I try to spend straight 8-10 hours in the beginning to get hang of things + it gets you in a flow. The idea is to get over that first hump the uncomfortable part of starting something new and nuances that come with it. As you get used to few things you can reduce your sessions to 1-2 hours everyday or 2-3 every other day.</comment>


Simple Ways to Be Better at Remembering - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/smarter-living/simple-ways-to-be-better-at-remembering.html <comment><USER2> I highly recommend "Moonwalking with Einstein" to anyone curious about what our memories can do and how we can make better use of them: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein)

The author won the US Memory Championship after just a single year of learning and practicing mnemonic techniques.

<comment><USER3> I read that book recently and it triggered my interest in "the art of remembering".

Then I moved to "how to develop a perfect memory"[1]. It gives practical tips for remembering lists, numbers, appointments, faces.... It works surprisingly well. The thing is that nowadays, we usually use technology to remember those kind of things.

I think there's a huge difference in the types of contents that are "hackable" and the ones that have to be learnt by assimilation. I can remember 50 digits without any problem, but remembering subtle content from a book, how to use a new API,... it's much more difficult to find mnemonics for that in my experience.

Anyway, I think it's great fun to "hack" yourself to be more efficient, and this, along with speed reading and lucid dreaming could have exponential effects. I'm on it. on both. We'll see.

1\. [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2691332-how-to- develop-a...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2691332-how-to-develop-a- perfect-memory)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No mention of Anki? I use it every day for basically everything (foreign languages, life memories, trivia, world capitals, etc.) and it's unquestionably changed my life.

<comment><USER5> I have some nice flash card decks on anki but have failed to make it a habit to look at them. Did you have any ideas on how to make it a habit to do these reviews? For me some of these flash card decks are kind of heavy (e.g. Deriving some equations) and I think my brain just does not always want to get into it.

<comment><USER6> In my experience it does not work for "heavy" questions.

I successfully developed a habit for "quick" questions, where you know the answer instantly once you learned it. Examples: Capital of Malaysia? "Car" in chinese? Phone number of Mom? Images work well, like "what country does this map show?"

For heavy questions the repetition feels like too much work. Deriving equations is probably heavy. Another example would be: List all states of the US.

Deriving equations is not fun for my mind, because it takes seconds or minutes of concentration. For the quick questions, I receive success dopamin before I even notice that it is work. Fun. It becomes a game and I sometimes did a few cards on my smartphone while waiting, for example.

One strategy is to split heavy questions into many quick ones. Unfortunately, I don't know what to do if splitting does not work.

<comment><USER7> Clozes could help, if the question can be expressed as a series of steps or as individual facets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I recently read [1]: "There are three ways in which information may be learned or committed to memory: by rote, assimilation, or use of a mnemonic device.

By Rote. Material to be learned is repeated [...] It seems to be the least efficient way of remembering.

By Assimilation. Information is learned by assimilation when the structure or substance of the information fits into some memory schema already possessed by the learner. The new information is assimilated to or linked to the existing schema and can be retrieved readily by first accessing the existing schema and then reconstructing the new information. Assimilation involves learning by comprehension and is, therefore, a desirable method, but it can only be used to learn information that is somehow related to our previous experience.

By Using A Mnemonic Device. A mnemonic device is any means of organizing or encoding information for the purpose of making it easier to remember. [...] Any form of processing information in this manner is a more effective aid to retention than rote repetition. "

Is this information (from 1980) outdated? Is "spaced repetition" a newer idea? Is it more effective than assimilation or mnemonic device?

[1] [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intellig...](https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of- intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/psychology-of-intelligence- analysis/art6.html)

<comment><USER9> SRS is not really an alternate, SRS is a scheduling of study. You still use your mnemonic devices and attempt assimilation, or even memorize by rote. But SRS spaces out the practice of these things to try to attain optimal recall.

If you are using rote, like studying a language's vocabulary, you may have 1000 vocabulary cards that you study over a few weeks or months. SRS will have you practice reviews based on your ability to answer the cards. If I see "cabeza" and think "cabbage", clearly I don't know the word and I mark it as bad. I'll review it the next day. If I get it correct ("head") then the next review will be, approximately, double the time between the previous two reviews (rough progression then of 1 day, 2 days, 4 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 4 months, ...).

If I'm trying to study by assimilation (true comprehension), the cards may be more complex or harder. Translate a full sentence (from or to Spanish). Practice a math problem (some tools in Anki let these be generated automatically so you practice the techniques and don't just memorize some answers). It may even be a prompt rather than an explicit Q&A card.

If I'm using a mnemonic device ("The Cab in New Mexico Is Land Cruiser" for the tarsal bones), I may have a card that has "tarsal bones" and on the back has the mnemonic. I may have the mnemonic and the question "T?". I may have the full list of the mnemonic and the bones on the card with parts covered over. It's still using a mnemonic, but, back to SRS, SRS just schedules my practice of it based on my ability to recall in the review session.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is actually some really good ted talks on this:

* [https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone...](https://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do)

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ebJlcZMx3c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ebJlcZMx3c)

Make more connections to the things you need to remember. Make a tune out of the specifics or make a quick phonetic story out of it.

Good stuff.

I haven't been able to forget my ex's anniversary date because I remember it as "she's a 10/10" (oct 10).

</comment><comment><USER11> >Forget cramming. It didn't work in college, it doesn't work now. Spaced repetition might be the best way. //

Cramming worked for me, it's just short-term, which can be a problem depending on your goals.

<comment><USER12> Ha, I was thinking the same... reading "forget cramming, it didn't work in college" just brought back very vivid and terrifying memories of my first year statistics course, where I "learned" the entire course contents in a night.

Personally I've tried spaced repetition so many times and things don't stick for me... it just feels like repeated cramming: I'm great while I'm doing the Anki, but next session it's back to square one.

<comment><USER13> Have you ever learned how to play an instrument? That's a space where the effectiveness of spaced repition is obvious. It's like there's a maximum amount you can improve between sleep cycles.

<comment><USER14> One of the amazing results of Ericsson's study of performance musicians was that those who napped during the day had a huge imprvement over those who didn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> +1 for spaced repetition. I automated a schedule (1, 7, 17, 35 days) based on the SuperMemo algorithm for stuff that I read that I want to remember. Currently exists as a browser extension:

(Chrome) [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/harvest-grow- your-...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/harvest-grow-your- mind/dejecgndbecimagkaefkfdaedaimamji)

(Firefox) [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/addon/harvest- gr...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/addon/harvest-grow-your- mind)

</comment><comment><USER16> Read blogs from Piotr Wozniak, he did a lot of research on the subject and created supermemo.

[https://www.supermemo.com/english/company/wozniak.htm](https://www.supermemo.com/english/company/wozniak.htm)

</comment><comment><USER17> There were a couple parallel sub-discussions earlier this week, but no mention of spaced repetition:

Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15508714](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15508714) (Oct 2017, 138 comments)

>pdog: _Do you know the best exercise for your brain? Actual exercise_

>JamesBarney: _I hit dual n back pretty hard trying to improve my IQ_

[https://www.gwern.net/DNB-meta-analysis](https://www.gwern.net/DNB-meta- analysis)

</comment><comment><USER18> I would love to increase my focus. Even if I force myself to sit tight, often times I catch myself reading paragraphs after paragraphs all the while thinking about something else. Meditation can help? What else?

<comment><USER19> > I catch myself reading paragraphs after paragraphs all the while thinking > about something else.

Take notes as you read? Taking notes is great because you're doing both information input and output, which helps a lot in memorization and assimilation (information fits with previous information).

<comment><USER20> Also, repeat or explain what you just read in your own words while not looking at the text. Corroborate if you can remember.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm a big fan of spaced repetition. From a mathematical standpoint it's also a very interesting question: You have your forgetting curve and which gives you the probability that you still remember the association. I think there is still some rooms for improvements around there. For instance, I'm not sure if the big plays in the area adjust the forgetting curve for each individual user after they have enough data points.

Shameless plug: I actually just developed a new spaced repetition platform the last few years. I'm not official launched but it's online and works. If anybody is interested in taking part of the beta testing, email is in my profile.</comment>


For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity - <AUTHOR> http://www.startribune.com/for-tech-weary-midwest-farmers-40-year-old-tractors-now-a-hot-commodity/566737082/ <comment><USER2> My grandfather, rest his soul, was a 3rd generation rancher and farmer. He bought 2 John Deere tractors in the '80s and used them for 35 years. They are still being used to this day on the ranch.

Growing up, I visited the ranch regularly. Farming and ranching is very hard on equipment so the tractors often needed repair. My father and grandfather could seemingly fix anything on the tractor without even needing to go to the parts store. (The closest one was a 1 hour drive). Without this capability my family never would have been able to make a living of any kind with their land.

In 2020 farmland is being gobbled up by corporations. The family farmer is going extinct. That means tractor companies are getting a whole new customer who is nothing like the previous. Corporations want tractors as a service, they want them to be self-driving, and they want to manage them in bulk. They don't really care if they can repair them because they pay someone else to do it.

Personally, it is sad to see this change since so much of my family history and memories are tied up in the way things used to be. I sometimes feel out of place in my family because I couldn't fix a single thing on a tractor. On the other hand my grandfather didn't touch a computer in his entire life.

The world changes and sometimes it sucks but that is how progress is made.

<comment><USER3> The greatest innovation in the history of mankind was a land consolidation. It took what 100 peasants all making enough food for subsistence living to 100 peasants be able to make enough food for thousands of people.

It's not sad, it's progress.

<comment><USER4> _It 's not sad, it's progress._

These are not mutually exclusive concepts.

<comment><USER5> It's sad that progress must mean sadness for some. We should have better social safety net so that displacement doesn't mean despair.

<comment><USER2> While the financial/livelihood component is a major factor I think most of those affected, if asked, would say that is the least of the reasons for their sadness. It is the intangible things being lost and the end of a way of life that causes the most pain IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The technology itself is not the issue, the problem is that companies are at war with their customers. These companies will go to any length to extract as much revenue as possible. Milking your customers is not good for business, especially if you drive them into insolvency.

I hope in the future there are more companies that try to align incentives with their customers, such that their business practices help customers be more successful (although many of them preach this, very few actually do). Many businesses these days seem to be geared toward making a quick buck, rather than really providing any value.

<comment><USER7> If customers don't want this stuff, why isn't there a competing company offering non-DRM tractors?

<comment><USER8> If you don't know the answer to that - you may have wanted to think it through a little more.

Manufacturing at scale is hard and expensive. John Deere has been doing it for years, creating the most reliable tractors in the world for decades and has only recently decided to bend customers over to give them the ol' in-out-in- out.

A new brand would need to start from almost smaller than scratch, and have tens of million dollars of investment to even get started producing their own tractors. Then they'd have the uphill battle of a set of people who are extremely reliant on these machines to trust a new company with no track record with highly mission-critical equipment.

It would be an incredibly high-risk investment, with little to no guarantee of success.

Instead, as the article says - these farmers are not buying new tractors from _anyone_ at the moment.

<comment><USER9> In today's market, your argument doesn't hold water.

A new brand would need to start from smaller than scratch? So what? People start new companies every day.

It would require tens of millions of dollars of investment? So what? We keep being told how capital markets are just sloshing with cash looking for investment opportunities; that one of the reasons for rising inequality is due to the _dearth_ of investment opportunities for the rich to use to seek returns.

They'd have trouble finding customers willing to give them a shot? So what? _Every_ startup has this problem. You solve it by differentiating yourself from your incumbent competitor. When your competitor is so hated that they're getting negative press in national news outlets and state legislatures are being pressured to pass laws, your differentiation proposition _is practically written for you._

I'm sure there are tractor upstarts out there trying to get funding. The question is, if they're not getting funding then why not, and why doesn't anybody know about them?

<comment> chalupa-man The moment you started to see any real success with a company like this and become significant competition, John Deere would reverse their equipment-as-a- service DRM-based model, and you would be instantly crushed by their far more familiar and established brand with all the accumulated knowledge and trust people already have. It's so certain that you have essentially no chance of long-term success. John Deere can operate like this because there's no competition, but the second there is competition than can revert to how they were and you are dead, so there's no point even trying.

<comment><USER9> Brand isn't everything, it doesn't "crush" competitors in markets without winner-takes-all characteristics (i.e. network effects). People buy smartphones that aren't iPhones; people buy burgers not made by McDonald's; people rent hotel rooms not offered by Hilton or Marriott. By the time the upstarts get competitive enough to force the incumbent to act, the upstarts already have branding and market power of their own, and are not so easily crushed.

<comment><USER10> I think you discounting the brand way to much.

Hotels, Food, etc are very much Brand focused, and absolutely people have their preferred brand of Hotel and Fast Food (and despise other brands)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a former founder of an Ag-Tech startup, I feel like this article is vastly minimizing the on-the-ground reality that are facing a lot of farmers. Sure, for smaller farmers cost might be a factor, and I'm sure nostalgia plays in a bit, but the biggest issue by far that we found when we were talking with farmers working on building our products was a profound frustration with the use of DRM, draconian licensing terms, and vendor lock-in. John Deere is basically the Oracle of the tractor world.

These farmers are not a bunch of ignorant backwater hicks- the ones that we worked with are shrewd, generally educated, and not at all afraid of technology. In fact, the reason I founded a company in the first place was that there's clearly a lot of demand for better technology among farmers. The problem is that the licensing terms and lock-in from their vendors have squeezed Farmers into a corner. None of their equipment is interoperable, they are bound by expensive recurring fees for software, locked into support contracts, can't repair their own equipment; the same situation those of us in tech have been shouting about for decades.

Maybe if we paid more attention to the farmers we could find some good allies in some of our movements.

</comment><comment><USER12> Right to repair laws need to be put in place.

American corporations are trying to reach a point where you don't own products. You are merely long-term renting or leasing products from them. And any alterations or repairs will come with a heavy price.

It's already hard enough to repair your own vehicle without taking it to a dealership. How long until small car shops can't even fix any cars if they don't have the tools or software.

<comment><USER13> It's already here. The only reason I can do my own work on my N20 engine BMW is because they implemented really bad and vulnerable car DRM that can be trivially defeated, but they have improved on that in latter models.

<comment><USER14> You can't work on them, or you can't flash them with emissions control defeating tunes?

<comment><USER15> Or install a replacement part without taking it to the BMW dealership and having them code it to the car. Why is it only don't work on cars or pollute like no tomorrow? There is a middle ground and a lot of people are screwed by DRM like this because of it.

<comment><USER14> >Why is it only don't work on cars or pollute like no tomorrow?

Who said it was? The comment mentioned working on the engine specifically, there's not much DRM that can interfere with working on the engine unless you're trying to tune your ECU.

It's not like the N20 is going to check your pistons and connecting rods for authenticity before starting after all.

There are not even that many parts in BMWs that are VIN-locked, and much fewer with actual DRM. Usually the parts referred to with that, the BCMs are VIN- locked by most manufacturers (I know GM and Mercedes both do the same)

I'm sure you can come up with some outlier parts for specific models, but in general, complexity of newer cars it the enemy of repair, not some active attempt to get you into a dealership.

-

In fact, I'd almost say the opposite is true of brands like BMW. They make a lot of money of leases with "maintenance included".

As they caught on to how brilliantly leases were paying off they started to stretch recommended service intervals to keep people out of the dealership as much as possible.

<comment><USER15> The N52 engine will refuse to start if the iDrive system is not working (if the car has this feature), the iDrive system is an expensive replacement, on top of the work required to code it to the car. All of the in-car systems signals go through the computer that controls the iDrive system since it is a fiber ring network through the car, terminating at the amp in the trunk and the iDrive system in the front.

<comment><USER14> How does iDrive being VIN locked become, "I can't work on my engine"?

Also definitely want a source on the N52 requiring iDrive to start, because obviously not all the cars with the N52 even had iDrive...

It sounds like you're oversimplifying it.

iDrive probably fails in a specific way that causes a problem for the car's network, _not BMW intentionally had the car stop working because your music couldn 't play._

That would be exactly in line with what I said about complexity being the issue, not some concerted effort to get you into the dealership. It's confusing a bad design with malice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> " They cost a fraction of the price, and then the operating costs are much less because they're so much easier to fix," he said."

It's not really so much a technology problem as the ability to repair, probably by the farmers themselves.

Companies don't make it easy. You need special equipment, tools, etc.

We could insist on a right to repair, open standards, etc

<comment><USER17> All good ideas, but repairing surface mount / integrated / dust and vibration glued parts is not as easy EVEN IF they were open standards as a 40 year old tractor is to repair. I spent way to long repairing an old gas engine, it was super simple in terms of operating approach. Opening the hood on my new car - the fixes are not as obvious.

<comment><USER16> I couldn't even swap out a headlight in my girlfriend's car, because of the tight space.

Instead she has to pay a garage to do it. That's not it used to be.

<comment><USER18> I volunteered to replace a headlight in my girlfriend's car long ago. The socket was completely buried. No access from above. The assembly looked like it was held in by two screws and a section of 3/8" metal bar, so no problem, I'll remove those, pull it out and then replace the bulb. Nope. You couldn't actually get it out because the hole was slightly too small.

Looked it up online, shops put this model on the lift and access it from below. Ended up laying on a piece of cardboard in a light rain because it was only accessible from below the bumper. If my forearms were any shorter (I'm pretty tall) I would not have been able to do even that.

Meanwhile the headlight on my 10 year old VW went out a couple months ago. There's a twist-on cap, and a twist-in socket. The cap is visible standing up.

I had the replacement bulb in in under a minute. Unfortunately the matching bulb on the other side, the socket was a bit wedged and I spent most of the time getting it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is probably a sizable market for building out software and technology for 'upgrading' older farm equipment to modern principals, such as self driving, variable rate fertilization, variable rate planting, etc. When I was more involved in ag research I met several farmers who DIY built themselves variable rate fertilization drills. While its not ubiquitous, the farming community has a very long culture of DIY out of pure necessity. I think this is the source of the pushback against companies like JD.

<comment><USER20> I've heard of farmers going so far as to make their own GPS guidance systems, enhanced before they were widely available and reasonably priced. I'm not sure how accurate and repeatable they were.

Going to any farm that's been around for 20+ years, you'd see so many custom solutions that are really functional.

Farmer one-off solutions are kind of like homebrew Excel applications - they're infinitely customizable, the end user knows exactly how it should work and can reasonably make it happen, and it's a small fraction of the cost of a commercial/IT SOLUTION. It may not be as reliable, but it's good enough.

<comment><USER21> Does civilian GPS have enough resolution to be useful in a tractor guidance system?

<comment><USER20> I belive they were enhancing it with terrestrial base stations (Loran-C was mentioned in the discussion, which was 10+ years ago). John Deere has proprietary secret sauce and if I recall correctly, they can get sub 1" accuracy. That precision farming has enabled things like different amounts of fertilizer for different parts of the field, a substantial material savings and improvement for the environment.

<comment><USER22> u-blox's ZED-F9P chip is capable of 10 mm (0.39 inch) accuracy [0]. AFAIK, high accuracy requires being relatively close to a terrestrial correction station. Some states, such as Iowa, run a network of these stations and provide free access to the public [1].

0 - [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15136](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15136)

1 - [https://iowadot.gov/rtn/IaRTN-resources/About-the- IaRTN](https://iowadot.gov/rtn/IaRTN-resources/About-the-IaRTN)

<comment><USER20> I'm from Iowa but had no idea the DOT ran such a network! Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As someone who grew up on a farm and spent 7 years running one (few thousand acres so fairly good size), I can provide some background on why this is happening.

The large farms are driving new equipment sales. They are the ones buying the brand new John Deere $700k combine harvesters will all the bells and whistles. The problem is, those bells and whistles add a lot of extra complexity to the machine, making it harder and more expensive to fix. Deere doesn't make it easier since they don't provide details needed for 3rd party repair people (e.g. schematics, software tools for managing embedded controllers, etc). The people buying new equipment don't care about that. Their equipment is covered by warranty and Deere fixes it for them (or replaces it). They sell the machine after it is a year or two. So, they never deal with the crap repair- ability of new equipment. The 2nd stage used market cares a little but not so much either. They can still get Deere to fix it for them, maybe not under warranty.

By the time the equipment gets to the 3rd tier used market, it is already heavily deprecated. The loss in value due to poor repair-ability is not getting fed back up the chain in any significant way which would make the primary buyers change their decision making. They want the bells and whistles and they will pay a little extra in deprecation to get them. The problem for society is that you have a $700k machine that is basically a paperweight after a decade or two. You might was well drive it in the junk pile because no one is going to be able to make it run. At least, not without tearing out heaps of electronics that are no longer working. New machines are utterly dependent on onboard electronic control systems (e.g. ECMs). They won't run without them.

New machines are disposable and that is what the buyers are deciding to choose. You can't put all the blame on companies like Deere. The contrast to old farm equipment is dramatic though. We have an old Ferguson tractor, might be from the 1950s. Everything on that tractor can be fixed. If we wanted, we could make it run like it just came out of the factory. For jobs on the farm that don't need a big tractor, it does them just fine. Probably in 100 years you will still be able to keep it running if you want.

<comment><USER24> > By the time the equipment gets to the 3rd tier used market, it is already > heavily deprecated. The loss in value due to poor repair-ability is not > getting fed back up the chain in any significant way which would make the > primary buyers change their decision making.

If the value is heavily depreciated by the time it reaches the "3rd tier" used market, why would the buyers in the "2nd stage" used market not factor this depreciation into the price they pay for it when they buy it used from the first owner? Surely people spending $700k on capital purchases know a thing or two about factoring in resell and depreciation into the prices they are willing to pay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> _" These things, they're basically bulletproof. You can put 15,000 hours on it and if something breaks you can just replace it."_

Amen.

It is true that there is always someone saying "Things were better back then."

But that doesn't always mean that they are wrong.

<comment><USER26> Yup. I also put large household appliances in this category. They've been getting more expensive and more fragile for decades, without much real progress other than energy efficiency which is unrelated to the fragility afaik.

<comment><USER27> Do you think normal gas powered cars have have been getting less reliable?

I agree with what many others here have said about how hard it is to service new vehicles. After he died, I kept my grandpa's 1970 Chevy C-10 pickup going for years. It was simple and very easy to fix/work on.

But it needed a lot more attention than modern cars, and I think that while the age played a factor, it was just inherently less reliable.

Key points: that Chevy needed an oil change every 3-4000 miles. New cars need oil changes every 8-10000 miles, give or take. Old cars also needed tune-ups.

What do you think?

<comment><USER28> older cars were more repairable. reliability is harder to make a blanket statement about.

the most important difference IMO is that older cars are now dangerously unsafe by modern standards, by orders of magnitude. crumple zones, multiple airbags, pedestrian scoops, and now driver-assists like emergency braking.

<comment><USER29> Cars are a bit of an anomalous category here. Driving is a pretty dangerous activity, so it's pretty sensible to give up some reliability & repair-ability in order for a safer road-coffin.

This is much less true for something like a fridge/thermostat/tractor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Comment from a tractor-owning friend:

 _That 's a very good piece capturing a lot of the issues (esp GPS retrofitting which is easy and make a huge difference)._

 _The one thing it doesn 't quite draw out is that the market has segmented. If you are a small to mid farmer you have fairly low demands for horsepower and can tolerate small breakdowns you can fix in the field. So buying an older machine makes sense._

 _If you are a big farmer or a contractor (person with a big tractor /combine/machine who hires out) you need high horsepower and 18 hour a day operation without breakdowns. as in fleet purchasing for trucks they have rolling finance for high capital value kit to replace it every couple of years having run up high hours._

 _The modern electronic high power kit is quite amazing, it 's not gratuitous use of electronics. Electronics also important for meeting modern emissions regs._

 _Tractors, as the piece points out have to be ultra rugged for field work and that means that the older stuff does last well and 100hp or over will get you a long way._

</comment><comment><USER31> Being a city-dweller for all my life it was a relevation to be finally exposed to farmer life. In many regards, not just the snobbish urban-myths (super conservative, unintelligent, smelly, unindustious government-dependend anti- environmental inbreds) that I held.

The farmers I know, have a huge range of skills, from metalworking, construction, woodwork, mechanical engineering, biology, geology and are putting that knowledge into practice every day. All of that while planning years ahead (for instance how to plow your field this year, so that in 5-10 years you don't get a massive slope on your field's edge).

So when farmers talk about fixing a tractor themselves, it's not just about being able to buy some screws or replacement joints, it's about welding that piece you need, sanding its steelframe to remove rust, knowing whether to bend or clinch instead of welding. It's even about building the tools to build those parts.

</comment><comment><USER32> My father is an agricultural mechanic here in Ireland. Lots of farmers here use very old tractors. It's not unusual to see David Brownes, Case Internationals, Massey Fergusons, John Deeres and Zetors going back 20 – 30 years or more.

There's a strong industry of companies selling spares too. Many farmers simply can not afford they new stuff and in many cases they are huge in size making them unsuited to small out buildings on family farms. That's before all this new wave of shitty behaviour towards repairing rights and software.

</comment><comment><USER33> Disclaimer: I have been on a tractor exactly once in my life, no idea what any of the realities of this would be. _But..._

Doesn't it seem like there's a huge opening for Cheap Solid DIY Tractors Inc.? All I read about is how farmers hate tractors available now for their lock-in, their shitty software, their insane costs -- I wonder what's preventing someone from selling tractors that match the description listed in this article.

<comment><USER34> As a farmer, I don't think I've ever met another farmer who hates modern equipment. I'm not sure where that narrative has come from. We drool over the latest tech.

I know many who choose older equipment for financial reasons, as the article suggests. Modern equipment is insanely expensive to purchase and is simply out of reach of the smaller farmer.

If older equipment was actually a hot commodity, more than newer equipment, economics tells us that older equipment would be worth _more_ than newer equipment and that is simply not the case. Price falls consistently with age for a comparable machine. They are paying more for a 1980 model because someone else is paying even more for the 2000 model.

There are plenty of basic tractors on the market with little in the way of electronics. But building a new tractor is expensive. While they come in well below the cost of a decked out John Deere, they are still a lot more expensive than a 40 year old tractor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I am a silicon valley DevOps engineer with roots in an Iowa family farm which 20 years ago was trolling farm auctions to find pre-electronics-dominated equipment so it could be repaired on site, if anybody has any questions.

</comment><comment><USER36> The broken tractor is a big reason why the Open Source Ecology project was started.

[https://www.opensourceecology.org](https://www.opensourceecology.org)

Btw, Open Source Ecology does have a DIY tractor as well.

[https://opensourceecology.dozuki.com/c/LifeTrac](https://opensourceecology.dozuki.com/c/LifeTrac)

[https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/](https://www.opensourceecology.org/portfolio/tractor/)

They regularly have courses, workshops, internships at their Missouri farm. There's a full machine fabrication shop, permaculture farm, & sustainable living community. Their courses are a great deal & they even do work exchange. Highly recommend checking it out.

</comment><comment><USER18> I belonged to a club up until last year where probably half of the members were currently or formerly professional landscapers or related careers.

The number of them who were not into computers was quite high. I want to say it's 'surprising' but that statement doesn't even survive a giggle test. Not everyone is enamored of IT the way we are, and some have perfectly good reasons for that. Not every step we take is a step forward.

I kinda think that the only reason we don't hear more complaints is that people are preoccupied with other professions that don't quite deliver on their promises, especially the medical profession. If Western Medicine somehow got sorted out tomorrow, I would not be surprised if by next week many of those pitchforks were pointed at us.

</comment><comment><USER37> My understanding is that farming equipment is quite specialized, but I fail to see how no entrepreneur has capitalized on making "old school" tractors today. The immediate retort is that John Deere's approach is maximally profitable-- but is it? Sketchy websites host hacked firmware giving farmers the freedom to work on their own tractors anyways. The equipment manufacturers have lost their goodwill with farmers. From the ashes could rise a new firm that doesn't try to act so, well, crony. Even if they didn't end up as big as the incumbents, there's no doubt a profitable business exists with ephemeral sales of farming equipment that don't mandate expensive maintenance from your company's people.

<comment><USER38> nobody wants an "old school" tractor that needs someone in the cab driving it. Modern highly-integrated farm equipment is a massive boost for productivity and a massive reduction in costs.

There's a different discussion to be had as to why there hasn't arisen a company that shears the sheep a bit more gently, but generally on the whole the market doesn't want the old-school tractors. This article is not the overall shape of the market. Farmers generally want to farm, not be software/hardware engineers developing their own tractor guidance systems.

As for that topic, generally markets are not as efficient, modern businesses operate at such high scales that it's extremely difficult for competitors to enter the market. It took Elon Musk to do it for the auto industry, that's the scale of funding and production that you need to compete. It's an oligopoly, not an efficient market.

techpeople like ourselves are the last ones that should be pointing fingers, we are the ones who created the whole "as a service" model, and created the basis for closed firmware that users have no right to access. It's our business models applied to a different market, and it's just as noxious when we do it.

It's not like I can go take a look at the firmware of the processor I'm typing this on, now is it? Why doesn't someone just start up a new CPU company that lets me see everything?

(and yeah some people like RAPTOR are trying but that's the shape of the problem, it's a niche desire and there's enormous startup costs, and established players can easily drop prices for a few years and crush you, so realistically it's not a market that can be efficient.)

Markets aren't going to do this stuff on their own. If you don't regulate them via something like right to repair, they'll skin you as roughly as they please and crush any upstart who tries to do things "the right way". Welcome to the Free Market - a truly free market is rarely "fair" to competitors or pleasant to customers.

</comment></comment><comment> a-dub A few years ago a bartender friend of mine shared a joke/investment tip with me. He said "if I had money, I'd rent a warehouse and fill it with appliances that aren't internet connected. In 20 years, people will be desperate for them."

I think he may be right.

</comment><comment><USER39> If tractors with closed software are such a problem, why doesn't a company build old-school tractors? Heck, you could use a 1980 design, currently selling second-hand for $40-60k, based on expired patents.

<comment><USER40> Farmers need same-day access to replacement parts, which means a dealer with a full stock of parts within driving range. Belarus/MTZ tractors are low tech designs but have about one dealer in every state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> What happens when we are so far away from the past, that there are no older tractors? Will our current 'new' tractors still work without dialing home or requiring computers when they're old?

I keep wondering that about our automotives as well. I want vehicles that are safe for my family, but ones that I can work on with a general understanding of automotive repair and physics. Will there come a point where you can no longer work on any new automotives?

</comment><comment><USER42> I've commented this on HN before, but the small farmer is criminally underserved. You can get so much more bang for your buck buying an old tractor than anything new, and there are whole cottage industries that have sprung up making replacement parts. If you go to a tractor show you can get just about any part you need apart from perhaps major body components.

I think a startup making cheap reliable tractors could make bank.

</comment><comment><USER43> This may be the single most important information security problem worth solving on our planet. This is not about who gets to see the latest movie at what resolution, it is about vendors and farmers fighting for control of the plant, in this case the tractor, and indirectly its yields. I think the world needs an open source tractor, or else am hoping the right to repair movement addresses these difficulties.

<comment><USER44> It's more than that. I'm in Australia, hiding inside away from the smoke haze, thinking about where global warming is going. Seems clear to me that in the next 20-30 years most farming will need to move indoors into climate controlled environments. We'll need to have closed systems where the air, water, soils, and our biodiversity is carefully managed.

<comment><USER45> > We'll need to have closed systems where the air, water, soils, and our > biodiversity is carefully managed.

Let that sink it. We screwed Earth badly enough we need to build spaceships _on Earth_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I have an IHC (International Harvester Company) 433 that is about 60 years old and it is still in use occasionally for forest work. It is amazing how robust and reliable these old machines are.

Fun facts:

\- It has 8 reverse gears and 16 forward ones. With a maximum speed of about 25 km/h this is very granular. On the other hand: the diesel engine is very forgiving and not easily stalled.

\- It does have an operating hours counter instead of an odometer.

<comment><USER21> I always felt as though an odometer reading was only a proxy for what really matters when it comes to most maintenance schedules (operating hours). Tires and brakes would be an exception, but for most parts, operating hours is the better proxy. There's a reason airplane maintenance schedules go by hours flown rather than distance traveled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> We recently had to bin a beloved TV, and were looking for a "simple" 4k TV (i.e. _not a smart TV_ ) to replace it, and were surprised to find that they simply don't exist!

We ended up uncovering a 6 year old 1080p TV that was still in the box at Best Buy.

All in all, this problem might present an opportunity -- there might be new markets for these types of devices (dumb TVs, tractors, refrigerators, air conditioners, thermostats). Given them a modern UX, but eschew all of the creepy features of modern tech (always-on monitoring, open tcp/ip ports, impossible to repair).

In theory these high-quality, low-recurring-revenue products should be easier to build, and similarly easy to market ("we don't spy on you, we break in ways that are fixable"). And you can charge a premium, because you're offering the freedom of ownership (ironic, I know).

<comment><USER48> Just don't hook the "smart TV" up to the internet. Then you have a dumb TV.

<comment><USER49> Exactly, it can't phone home so you essentially have lobotomized the smart part.

<comment><USER50> You still get the software crap. An old TV, power on was instant, you can switch to a different input at will. My current TV has a reasonably short boot time (but still a boot time) but then switching to HDMI input it says "smart features will be available shortly" until it fully booted. The remote is also awful, you get this crappy cursor (operated like a Wii) that isn't actually any easier than using the UI with arrow buttons, you can't turn it off, and it switches from buttons to this mouse type input when you move it too much. I hate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> A farmer in my village in Switzerland imported a 1980's Ford tractor from Texas. He had to repair the front axle, which had been cut. He told me the axle was cut to render the tractor unusable after it was traded in for some kind of emissions credit. Anyone hear of such a system?

<comment><USER52> Sounds like the farming equivalent of Cash for Clunkers. IIRC, Cash for Clunkers rendered the vehicle inoperable by destroying the engine block, and in this case it seems that they cut the axle.

<comment><USER51> This is the CA one: [https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/farmer- program](https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/farmer-program)

And this is an example Certificate of Destruction: [http://valleyair.org/grants/documents/FARMER/Certificate- of-...](http://valleyair.org/grants/documents/FARMER/Certificate-of- Destruction-Form.pdf)

"I hereby certify that the equipment and engine described above has been received by this facility and will be permanently destroyed for recycling purposes only in accordance with the Heavy-Duty Off-Road Agricultural Equipment Replacement Program Guidelines"

So, at least in CA, it is not legal to export the tractor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The Karhkiv tractor plant models from the USSR are one step easier still to maintain, and hence very popular outside the west:

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

The XTZ 150K: [http://xtz.ua/en/kolisni- tractory/xtz-150k-09-172.html](http://xtz.ua/en/kolisni- tractory/xtz-150k-09-172.html)

<comment><USER54> Tons of equipment on Alibaba

[https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/large-wheel- tractor-w...](https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/large-wheel-tractor- with-240hp-Deutz_60836182100.html?spm=a2700.7724822.214.171.124b651cbDgwiNd)

Not the faintest idea if any of it is decent. However, China probably uses their own tractors. They have a huge farms also, so maybe these are serviceable...

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Somebody posted about open source tractor, but deleted the post before I managed to reply, so here we go:

Growing up in communist country it was really hard to buy tractor for your personal use as private enterprise ls was prohibited and all land was confiscated except of 1000m2 for personal use.

Owning tractors even for land this large (and to share with family and friends) was still something desirable so people come with their own designs build on top of ready-made or repurposed materials.

I can still see those machines from 70s or even 50s still working as there is nothing in them to break down.

I personally own 30 years old tractor which first life was spent on rice field of Japan. Again very simple build and outside of structural damage there is almost nothing that can fail. I am sure it will live for another 40 or 50 years without much problems.

</comment><comment><USER56> I don't know anything about tractors but I would assume that those used in developing countries are less "digitized" and probably easier to repair so does this open up a market for them to export? Or are they too "inferior" in terms of features that this is not feasible?

For example, I would assume that, India being a largely agricultural economy, has a pretty strong base of farming equipment. Is this an opportunity for them?

</comment><comment><USER57> Reminds me a bit of my great-grandfather. He bought his first tractor from my grandfather when my grandfather retired and auctioned off all of the farm and equipment.

There's a lost Minnesota PBS documentary from the 50s/60s about farmers still using horses and he is interviewed in it, and in the middle of the interview he just starts going off about someone shooting his horse, "those sons of bitches shot my horse!"

</comment><comment><USER58> Opportunity for a company like $TESLA or other startup to provide additional competition in the farm equipment space. It's a duopoly between John Deere (Green) and Case IH (Red). A modular electric system would work well since the required speeds are low and torque is important. Extra points for a small wind turbine based charging station that can mount to a barn.

<comment><USER59> A tesla uses about 20 horsepower to push itself down the freeway (it is capable of much more, that is what it is using after about 5-10 seconds to get up to speed). A tractor rated at 100 horsepower is expected run at 100 horsepower output continuously. 100 horsepower tractors are considered small (or maybe mid size) tractors these days.

In short, a battery operated tractor will need to stop to recharge every 5 minutes - if you can find batteries that will allow you to discharge that fast, most will not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I work with CNC and 3D printing, but I still enjoy my chisels and plane. There's something satisfying knowing the tool you're using is one people have used for thousands of years (with minor incremental updates to the technology) and it's still the best tool for the job.

</comment><comment><USER61> When I worked in manufacturing with heavy machinery I was taught that the best type of machine is one that functions regardless of it's condition. If you ever walk around any old tractor shows you can see that style of engineering throughout all those old pieces of equipment.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is one of the single best examples of the ludicrous nature of the recent pattern of loss of right-to-repair with regards to software and hardware control.

John Deere is literally bottom-barrel scum of, well, I guess, now - the tech industry - and it's their own fault that farmers are turning to purchasing older models.

'"There's an affinity factor if you grew up around these tractors, but it goes way beyond that," Peterson said. "These things, they're basically bulletproof. You can put 15,000 hours on it and if something breaks you can just replace it. It's not even just the price difference - the newer machines, any time something breaks, you've got to have a computer to fix it."'

The article then goes on to mention they're SOL, with the tractor stuck in the field for potentially days while they wait for a technician to come and charge $150/hr to fix it.

First off, farmers are not, for the most part, computer or software technicians. While there are certainly exceptions (I was only a farmer for 4-5 years of my life, total, I don't think I count), I've spent years on and off living on farms, and a lot of farmers in the rural US and Canada are lucky to even just have access to Satellite internet. I imagine doing a case study of farmers who would have an identical tractor with and without the software, and seeing how many would actually even use or miss it. I'm guessing not a lot.

The idea of relying on software technology is profoundly alien - and high-risk - to even just the culture of most farmers. To then put arbitrary restrictions on repair is far more than enough reason to ignore the newer products, especially with the familiarity and known reliability of older models.

It's a 2011 vs. 2017 MacBook Pro kinda deal - pretty much the same insides, but with out the ability for the user to go in and upgrade the RAM or the SSD to add any value afterwards, and the removal of familiar and useful ports. And if one part breaks, you're screwed and stuck travelling to an Apple store, if you're fortunate enough to have one in your area.

Right to Repair is one of the most critical things we as tech users need to be defending in the upcoming years. I've been buying Apple computers exclusively for 15+ years, and I will be buying a Lenovo next, as Apple has taken away my right to repair and upgrade the device myself, while simultaneously removing features, and raising the price.

If I was still a farmer, you wouldn't catch me dead buying a new John Deere - I could never bring myself to support such obvious greed and stranglehold control.

At least with a Tesla, you'd get the benefit of it being an EV. Maybe that's a fair enough trade to lose your RtR.

But with John Deere and Apple, by buying a new product of theirs, you are literally removing the rights and abilities you had several years ago. That is just pure greed - and we need to vote with our money.

<comment><USER62> I'm not a farmer and I am a software engineer, but I'm with the famers here. I want as little software in my products as possible.

I've been shopping for some audio equipment, and noticed that the latest version of an audio interface I'm interested in has replaced hardware switches on the device with software controls run from an attached computer.

I was immediately turned off by the new version and will likely buy a used one or one from a different manufacturer.

The hardware switches are old reliable technology and do not add much weight or size to the unit. And while the device is meant to be connected to a computer, it just needs to do so as a signal passing device, not as a device that is dependent upon software on the computer.

I'm sure the marketing department could explain why the new software controlled version is super awesome, but all it looks like to me is extra setup headaches and creating a dependency on software that I have no guarantee of being able to install on a future computer/OS combo.

Plus, there is always a chance the manufacturer will do something stupid/evil and brick old versions some day.

<comment><USER63> Exactly. Many years before everyone started buying computer controlled home audio playback devices, hobbyists and pros built or bought their digital audio workstations whose buss interfaces and device drivers made them subject to rapid forced obsolescence. One doesn't mind replacing working hardware so much when new models offer better performance. But once the tech matures, one resents _upgrades_ forced by firmware / OS / application software issues. Especially so when the performance becomes worse for one's use case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> The frustrating issues with this are the surrounding politics.

New tractors require service contracts / subscription type deals for new tractors. They require authorized service only.

Right to repair had some traction in Minnesota, but MN GOP opposed it... and guess who the farmers vote for?

</comment><comment><USER65> Pay attention Hacker News!

In this, _finally_ open source software/hardware has a giant market opportunity and a population with demands:

onwards; go and solve this need!

make something people want: good, reliable, sustainable (in every sense) farm equipments and systems (fertilizer, pest control, seed)

</comment><comment><USER66> Interesting relationship between another front-page article: [https://www.foodandwine.com/news/borden-dairy- bankruptcy](https://www.foodandwine.com/news/borden-dairy-bankruptcy)

</comment><comment><USER67> would not importing tractor from abroad like Europe make more sense financially? you can buy them for peanuts here and my understanding is you can drive whatever you want on your private property in US, so you don't need to care about some complicance with norms

I just checked classifieds and tractor here in Czechia with 20yo replaced engine will cost you 5000EUR, newer up to 10000EUR, still way cheaper than prices they quote

or why is no brand taking this market by hit with some cheap basic tractors like did Dacia in car industry in Europe? seem it should be hit judging by article, just sell tractor without electronics with old design from 80/90s

</comment><comment><USER68> "tech weary" and "An expensive repair would be $15,000 to $20,000, but you're still well below the cost of buying a new tractor that's $150,000 to $250,000." wtf come on. This has nothing to do with technology.

<comment><USER21> Here's where "tech weary" (side note: maybe "tech wary") comes in:

> There are some good things about the software in newer machines, said > Peterson. The dealer will get a warning if something is about to break and > can contact the farmer ahead of time to nip the problem in the bud. But if > something does break, the farmer is powerless, stuck in the field waiting > for a service truck from the dealership to come out to their farm and charge > up to $150 per hour for labor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> That's it, I'm holding onto my 20 year old mobile phone in case it makes a resurgence in another 20 years. Replaceable battery, no tracking, and components you can _see_ and re-solder!

</comment><comment><USER21> So, what are the real advantages to the newer tractors over older tractors for farmers? Why _should_ a farmer spend 4-10x as much for a newer tractor as they would for a 1980s model?

<comment><USER70> I'm not an expert, but I think generally tractors have become much bigger and more powerful over time. This works well for the large farms they're marketed to as they have to prepare and plant huge areas quickly. Smaller farmers probably couldn't work the fields fast enough with their older equipment that can't pull super wide discs.

Transmissions have definitely become super advanced, but I'm not sure all the advantages of that. The main thing I would think of is that it can compensate so you can maintain your speed better even when you hit a rough spot.

In addition, newer tractors have a lot of nice, kind of gimmicky features in the cab. Things like satellite radio, working air conditioning, anti-theft systems, and GPS-controlled planting are nice even if they're not necessary.

<comment><USER71> >In addition, newer tractors have a lot of nice, kind of gimmicky features in the cab. Things like satellite radio, working air conditioning, anti-theft systems, and GPS-controlled planting are nice even if they're not necessary.

From what I understand, this is really the main advantage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> > tractors from the 1970s and 1980s aren't so dramatically different from > tractors produced in the 2000s

I think we are coming to a point where "progress" stops and technology stays stable

<comment><USER59> Really it is tractors from the 1950s that are not dramatically different. More hydraulics and more horsepower are the only important things. AC and more comfortable cab/seats are secondary that might or might not matter to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I don't know why John Deere and other manufacturers aren't making parts for these old tractors, if they're not already, seems like a huge market opportunity.

<comment><USER59> John Deere is. There are policies for when a part can go out of production. I can't talk about them, but it amounts to if it is replaced often it remains in production. (My local dealer has the oil filter for my 1939 tractor in stock). Electronics are tricky - chips from 20 years ago are not made anymore, so if that electronic system breaks you are done. We try to predict how many replacement parts will be needed and make a large final order but sometimes we are wrong.

The fact that we make replacement parts longer than our competitors is one of our big selling points.

#deereemployee, but not speaking for my company of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Aren't there brands of tractors made in India and/or China that are less computerized and perhaps easier to run and repair than the bad green ones from the USA?

</comment><comment><USER75> Reminds me of the 4x4ers who prefer 80s and early 90s Toyota, made before there were any computers involved, Which let's them do all their own repairs and modifications.

</comment><comment><USER76> How 'bout we have some cars made that way, that is, as rugged, reliable, long lasting, easy to repair, mechanically simple, as those 1980 -- 1990 farm tractors!

</comment><comment><USER77> I learned to drive tractor on a John Deere 4240! It is good to know that my skills stacking and loading round bales, plowing, discing and harrowing are still viable.

</comment><comment><USER78> So what happens when someone tries to make tractors like the ones the farmers want? Does big-tractor put a hit out on you? (srsly I wouldnt be suprised)

</comment><comment><USER79> Also here we can see: a machine, in this case a tractor, has to be more complicated in the future to ensure economic growth and to rise added value.

</comment><comment><USER80> I'm surprised that John Deere isn't going around buying their old tractors, and then scrapping them or learning how to make one again.

<comment><USER23> They know how to make the old equipment. Buyers with enough cash to buy new equipment don't want it. They get warranty and they want all the fancy electronic features on the modern stuff. Deere know what they are doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> It appears that tractors in general are dramatically overpriced. Who else makes big tractors? Brazil?

<comment><USER82> > Brazil?

Up to a point. Larger than that point there are different specializations that you will only get from a single manufacturer. For a few of those that manufacturer is Brazilian, but most of the time it's from the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Flash player update scam. I'm outta there.

<comment><USER84> noscript is a great tool to stop this

<comment><USER85> and a great way to break lots of websites

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Every time I see an article like this, I can't help but imagine some penny pinching MBA laughing all the way to the bank. Textbook example of running a company purely for profit, with no regard for ethics, social good, legacy, or their customers.

</comment><comment> red-indian My own tractor is 67 years old. The parts catalog brags that not only do they carry every part new, but they have a photo of a copy they built entirely from contemporary made parts. It's a fine tractor and not hard to work on.

</comment><comment><USER87> I'm in the midwest and have friends that are farmers with old tractor collections. While I can't say I share their interest, it is certainly better than my coworkers plastic figurines.</comment>