Elon Musk calls NYT review of the Tesla Model S 'fake,' citing vehicle log data - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/02/11/elon-musk-calls-nytimes-review-of-the-tesla-model-s-fake-citing-vehicle-log-data-as-proof/ <comment><USER2> I _love_ this: Musk has promised to respond publicly to the negative NY Times review WITH DATA FROM THE CAR directly contradicting the assertions in the review. From now on, reviewers will be extremely careful about exaggerating the negatives of, or lying about, Tesla vehicles.

<comment><USER3> This is also a good way to never get positive press coverage ever again.

<comment><USER4> Honestly, I'm surprised anyone is even willing to do a review, when they have shown a willingness to sue the press for libel. Why bother taking the risk? Just let them have no press.

<comment><USER5> Any company or individual should be willing to sue the press for libel. It should also not be of any concern to a media outlet because by rule you should not be committing libel.

It would be an awesomely poor publication that is only willing to report on people and organizations that won't sue the publication when it intentionally misrepresents the facts.

<comment><USER6> In a perfect world. But in the real world, your concern has little to do with whether or not you actually committed libel. Just because you didn't, doesn't mean the company that you just trashed won't lawyer up and claim otherwise. If US courts were "loser pays", this would be somewhat less of a concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It was a bizarre piece, especially for the NY Times. It read like someone who got a car that had a 30MPG sticker on the window, put in exactly 10 gallons of gas and planned a trip of exactly 300 miles. In the snow. Any normal person wouldn't have even been in that situation, but the reporter then proceeded to use every opportunity to double down on his bad choices.

Tucked towards the end was a note about how the mileage estimate is indeed an estimate and that cold weather (or hot!) among other things can affect milage. Shocker.

Now finding out that the facts may not have been represented is even more curious.

<comment><USER7> The NY Times is standing behind the review. <https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/301071288326307840> <https://twitter.com/CNBC/status/301071386141667329>

Let's see that car data Mr. Musk.

<comment><USER8> NYT's Judith Miller lied about WMDs. So the paper isn't exactly known for accuracy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's an interesting thread from the Tesla Motors club, with lots of input from actual Tesla owners:

[http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/13633-NYT- arti...](http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/13633-NYT-article- Stalled-on-the-EV-Highway/page1)

From actual Tesla owners, the performance seen by the NYT reporter appears to be par for the course. To date most all-electric vehicles have struggled in the cold. The Nissan Leaf has a terrible time of it, with the range decreased significantly. I was honestly excited to see how Tesla S card would fare in cold weather, and how the Tesla engineers got around this problem. Disappointingly it looks like they didn't, and (anecdotally) the problem may be even worse on the Tesla S than on the roadster or even the Leaf. Bummer.

To everyone comparing the cold weather performance of the Tesla to an ICE: yes, ICEs do get harder to start and less efficient in the cold. But for an ICE, that kind of cold is significantly under __0 farenheit __\- most of the U.S. is at a low enough latitude that temperatures like this are rarely seen and modern ICE cars will start happily without the need for block heaters and other measures. The reporter had significant trouble at temperatures around __30F __which even an air-cooled car from decades ago will shrug off. We're talking about maybe 10% of the population having to take special measures during especially cold times of the year (block heaters for temps < 0F) vs >50% of the population (plugging in overnight, every day, for temperatures <= 30F). __HUGE __difference

Another blog post which sounds a bit more horrific than the NYT experience, although the Tesla owner really takes it with a good attitude:

[http://andwediditourway.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-not-so- ev...](http://andwediditourway.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-not-so-ev-life.html)

Other interesting information gleaned from the thread - 120V is useless for electric cars, you really have to have a dedicated circuit for them. And did I mention they hate the cold?

I'm rooting for Tesla and for electric cars. But I do wish they were rated to perform at lower temperatures, and that everyone (Tesla and reporters alike) was more transparent about this. I'd rather see a few people turned off on electric cars and the rest informed and trained with the care and feeding of the cars during winter, than to see people stranded out in the cold because they weren't aware of their cars' performance envelopes.

<comment><USER10> ICEs are significantly less efficient at startup and until they get up to their normal operating temperatures. That's not so much a problem for long range trips, but taking multiple single-digit mile trips spaced apart in the time dimension.

EVs have no problem "starting" in low temperatures. You might not be able to draw as much power for the drive train as the pack is heating up, but it's not a primordial "fuel-air-mix won't explode" problem.

There is no "problem" to get around; you either risk your battery pack getting damaged or you have an active battery management system that regulates the packs temperature. That will consume power, no way around it.

Now there are some conflating issues we have to consider. Tesla recently disabled in a patch the sleeping modes of some onboard components, and this vampire load might be contributing greatly to the large loss of energy reported overnight. The other is the drivers mentality; you don't drive it to the point of 5% remaining and then fuel up, thats how you do it with ICEs. Instead, you just simply plug it in whereever you can. And frankly, if you are going to keep it outside overnight at very very low temperatures (thereby forcing the battery management system to expend energy for heating), _plug it into a 120V_. They can (contra to your statement) get enough power from even from a 120V to keep the battery pack (and your range) at least at the same level, if not adding range.

\---

A side remark: I very much think this is a complete non-issue. 90% of driving is commuting, it is decidedly not long-range trips. And then this is mostly an issue of infrastructure; if there were at least 120V plugs at every parking lot, you wouldn't ever have to worry about these vampire loads. Infrastructure, since we are at it, is of course a much much bigger problem for gasoline cars; think of all the steps necessary to refine oil into gasoline and make it available at gas stations. Driving an ICE across states at the time of their advent would not have been a particularly enjoyable experience due to the general unavailability of fuel.

<comment><USER11> It's blown out of proportion for the normal use case, but I still think it was a very interesting review. I didn't expect them to be great road-tripping vehicles at this point, but was a bit disappointed by how the weather affected things. Even Musk's comments so far don't change my impression of that: so it's fine for a road trip if you make sure you don't get stuck in traffic, and make sure you never ever miss a chance to get it fully charged up, especially if the weather is cold? That's just not going to be competitive convenience- wise for long trips right now, no matter how much spin you want to put on it. The open question to me is just how fast the driver was going on the highway (90+ would make me raise an eyebrow or too), I'm not really sympathetic to the rest of Musk's claims at all. And unless he can provide some conclusive log evidence, collaborated by outside evidence, that's far more damning than what his comments so far describe, it reflects pretty poorly on the company to me. _Much_ more poorly than the original review, since I expected that to be pretty much a worst-case scenario—and was very interested in just how well it would handle that kind of stress test.

Edit: the thing that really bugs me about the response is that it's empty so far. If you've got conclusive evidence, show the evidence. Don't go all he- said-she-said in the meantime.

<comment><USER12> I didn't buy his explanations when I saw him on CNBC and Bloomberg. The impression I got is that he's whitewashing the review, focusing on how fast he was driving and pointing to another NYT reporter who got 300 miles (and when the anchor pointed out that it was in different driving conditions, he sort of glossed over it).

Speaking of inconveniences, how can someone who lives in an apartment own a Tesla vehicle? Most parking garages I've come across don't even have a standard 110v outlet, let alone the 240v outlets needed for faster charging. Is the solution for them to hope that there's a supercharger near by? It seems like Tesla is only viable if you live in a house.

<comment><USER13> Link to the Bloomberg and CNBC interviews:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/video/musk-model-s-works-well- nyt-a...](http://www.bloomberg.com/video/musk-model-s-works-well-nyt-article- ridiculous-XYFihqn~TVCxd1fYBTJ~Xg.html)

<http://www.cnbc.com/id/100439335>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Naturally, on any occasion when it is actually possible to check a journalistic report against reality, the journalist will turn out to be lying. This is not absolutely universally true, but it is impossible to appreciate just how often it is true until you have been reported-on in a case where you know the facts yourself.

tl;dr of course they're lying, it's easier to make stuff up then investigate so why wouldn't a reporter always just lie?

<comment><USER15> There really needs to be a phrase for this. I've noticed it myself. Whenever the news reports on something I happen to know a little bit more than average about, they almost universally get material facts (not just nitty gritty details) completely wrong. Taken inductively this is pretty damn scary.

<comment><USER16> I have had over a dozen positive articles about me written in newspapers, blogs, and TV segments over the years. Every single one of them misrepresented key facts, exaggerated my accomplishments, and oversimplified the invention/process. Initially I was shocked at the inaccuracies but over time I realized that despite the journalists' best intentions, they have to look at my story from different points of views and pick the angle that best fits the column's theme/focus - prodigious kid invents technology even Microsoft can't (David vs. Goliath), smart techies whip up app on weekend (HP/Apple garage- style startup), friendly-neighborhood IT guy takes a stab at unrelated field (everyone's a hidden genius).

One could argue that news must be devoid of any such slants, angles, or specific POVs but then we get caught in a debate about boring news that won't sell vs. sensationalized news that is meant solely to increase sales. Just like for programmers it is a constant balance between quality, deadlines, and cost, for journalists it is between truth, importance, and sales. '12 more people dead in blast in Tel Aviv' is truth and important but not sensational enough to sell. 'No-name D-list celeb gets caught speeding' is truth and sensational but not important.

In articles like this, they're trying to make it sound important and sensational while skirting around the limits of truth. In personal articles we've been involved in, they play the angles to show importance and make it sensational while not caring much about the factual accuracies.

<comment><USER17> But I like boring news that get straight to the point. Often the "getting an angle" style just makes the story longer, incoherent and boring.

I don't really like to write. I am only doing it because of a desire to express an idea or concept. Maybe journalism could improve with that spearhead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Tesla previously accused BBC's Top Gear of airing a "phony" review and sued them. The case was thrown out by a judge who ruled that the review was essentially true and that no reasonable person would draw untrue conclusions from it. (my words)

I haven't read every last word on the case, but it seems to me that Top Gear gave Tesla a very harsh review... but that they didn't cheat or do anything really wrong.

IMHO, I would at least give the NYTimes a chance to respond before jumping to any conclusions.

Top Gear's take on the lawsuit: [http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2011/04/02/tesla-vs- to...](http://transmission.blogs.topgear.com/2011/04/02/tesla-vs-top-gear- andy-wilman-on-our-current-legal-action/)

Tesla's reply: [http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/how-we-see-it-top- ge...](http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/how-we-see-it-top-gear-lawsuit)

Article on case being thrown out for a second time: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/23/top-gear- libel-c...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/feb/23/top-gear-libel-case- tesla-struck-out)

<comment><USER19> Top Gear's review was mostly very positive. Tesla picking up on the "bad" only advertised the "bad" to any one who hadn't seen the Top Gear review. Now we might see the same thing again here with the NYT.

I'm all for electric cars, seems to me to be the future. But if Musk and Co will insist on reacting like a scolded car every time some reviewer says something negative, in a really over sensitive way, they aint never gonna look good.

On top of that, they are aggravating relationships that could be crucial in the future. Dunno about the NYT, but I can see Top Gear just ignoring them, even when the car does improve. And there would come a time when TG does say, "yes this car is now practical". Well, there might have been. Who knows now.

Sad that Musk is still crying over the TG "BS" too. Seems a bit of a grudge holder, even when proved wrong in law.

I really like Musk's usual style and what he stands for, I also think he is doing a great job developing these cars, and soon, he will get there, but all this is a real turn off to me. And I can't help thinking he is making his own life worse with these reactions.

<comment><USER20> _> Sad that Musk is still crying over the TG "BS" too. Seems a bit of a grudge holder, even when proved wrong in law._

Ronald Reagan's publicists used to love it when Frontline would have some scathing exposé of the administration, so long as they accompanied it with stock video of Ronald Reagan going around looking presidential, cutting ribbons at new senior care centers and such. It didn't matter if the announcer was discussing his cutting funds for such places. The text of the message didn't matter to them at all, only the images.

We think of ourselves as lofty, intelligent _Homo sapiens_ , but we really mostly operate on an ape-like, "monkey-see, monkey do," level.

If you put yourself in shoes where such effects are really significant and cost you money or valuable publicity, I think you'd start to understand a bit more. It's much the same with various forms of prejudice and "oversensitivity." It's difficult to really understand the costs to all parties involved, short of direct experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm skeptical of Musk's claim that the review was fabricated. What motive would the author have to fake the review? He would lose all of his credibility as a reporter, essentially killing his carer if anyone found out. Seems like a really high price to pay.

That said, Musk also has a lot to lose by calling out a reporter for fabricating data. It's a pretty serious allegation, and he could get into hot water over it. Therefore, my intuition is that either: 1) Musk is not reading the data correctly, missing some important details, or 2) The data was recorded incorrectly by the car. My bets are on (2).

<comment><USER22> Why?

Writers are expected to deliver a "good read". Nothing beats a bit of tragedy!

Writing a review that stands out against lots of positive reviews can give you a reputation as someone who isn't scared of controversy. This could have been a career boosting "critical" review.

The industry at large is still pro-petroleum. Want a reputation as pro- electric? Annoy your mainstream motoring marketing departments - the ones that lend you a stream of high quality vehicles to try, take you to track days, invite you to nice launch events, if you're lucky, fly you to their German HQ for new launches...

<comment><USER23> That's it exactly. You don't want to piss off the oil companies, so you always make electric or hybrid vehicles look as bad as possible.

<comment><USER22> Yes. It's not a direct comparison, but you don't see motoring journalists complaining about running out of petrol. "I only though I had to put $5 in... and it told me it was no longer empty... why did I run out 100miles down the road?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jalopnik has a response from the Times:

"The Times's February 10 article recounting a reporter's test drive in a Tesla Model S was completely factual, describing the trip in detail exactly as it occurred. Any suggestion that the account was "fake" is, of course, flatly untrue. Our reporter followed the instructions he was given in multiple conversations with Tesla personnel. He described the entire drive in the story; there was no unreported detour. And he was never told to plug the car in overnight in cold weather, despite repeated contact with Tesla."

[http://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-super-pissed-about-new-york- ti...](http://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-super-pissed-about-new-york-times-tesla- range-128299695)

<comment><USER5> From the land of common sense:

<http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts>

> Tesla recommends charging Model S each night or when convenient to maintain > optimum driving range and battery health. If you go on vacation, plug in > your Model S before you leave.

The reporter is either an idiot or he wanted to become stranded.

<comment><USER4> That doesn't make it seem like the charge should go down overnight, just that you should top it up whenever you can because the range is pretty limited.

<comment><USER24> I think it should be common knowledge among anyone reviewing an electric car that battery performance degrades in cold weather.

<comment> brown9-2 So no one is to ever review the car from the perspective of a neophyte owner?

<comment><USER5> I seriously doubt anyone is going to spend $60-100k on a car that's well known to be different than all other cars and take it out on a road trip without any planning. If the author had charged the car when he had several opportunities to do so he would not have had any trouble.

I got a new car recently (gas powered) and I have not tried to test its range indicator by planning a trip to its capacity. If I did I would not take a detour through the largest city in the country or test out the acceleration. I also wouldn't stop at multiple gas stations and decide to not fill the tank. But hey, my article about sensibly using a vehicle wouldn't have made it into the NYT so what do I know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm looking at this from a different angle. Based on what I read from this article [1], Tesla is able to send data from a car back to the factory and on at least one occasion has done so without the permission and knowledge of the owner.

"In at least one case, Tesla went even further. The Tesla service manager admitted that, unable to contact an owner by phone, Tesla remotely activated a dying vehicle's GPS to determine its location and then dispatched Tesla staff to go there. It is not clear if Tesla had obtained this owner's consent to allow this tracking5, or if the owner is even aware that his vehicle had been tracked. Further, the service manager acknowledged that this use of tracking was not something they generally tell customers about."

"There appears to be no reference to Tesla having the ability to track a vehicle's location at its discretion in either the data recording section of the Roadster Owners Manual [Page 1-2, Column 2: PDF] or the addendum that covers the GSM connection [Page 9: PDF] "

AFAIK, Tesla has never addressed this publicly.

[1] [http://theunderstatement.com/post/18030062041/its-a-brick- te...](http://theunderstatement.com/post/18030062041/its-a-brick-tesla-motors- devastating-design)

<comment><USER26> I agree this is troubling, but sadly I don't think it will be much longer until most of us submit to this sort of monitoring by our insurance companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's easy to write off Elon Musk's attacks on Top Gear and the NYT as an overzealous founder defending his company or as a savvy PR strategy against bad press, but you also have to keep in mind the number of parties that want to to see Tesla fail and the huge amount of influence they have, namely the oil and traditional auto industries. Most "revolutionary" companies come under similar resistance. I'm interested to see what facts Musk lays out.

Also, it's interesting to note the archive of the article's author: [http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b...](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_m_broder/index.html). Seems like he's a climate/energy specialist rather than an automobile specialist as I had assumed.

<comment><USER28> Implying that the the oil and auto industries have gotten to the NYT is a serious accusation. Incidentally, the NYT is sticking by its story and has called Musk's accusations "flatly untrue".

<comment><USER29> Serious but obvious. Media companies make money primarily from large advertisers.

<comment><USER30> Take a brief glance at the author's articles and you will see an extensive list of titles you could describe as anti-oil and pro-environment.

<comment><USER29> My comment was only into relation to the influence the oil and gas industry has on media companies, not to this particular author or to this specific story.

<comment><USER28> With all due respect, your previous comment was that your accusation against the NYT was serious but obvious.

<comment><USER29> I am not the OP and I didn't make the accusation. But if the accusation is "that the the oil and auto industries have gotten to the NYT" then yes that is both serious and obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Tesla really does themselves no favours by their confrontational stance with the media. I hope - for their sakes - they are on stronger ground here than they were with their embarrassing lawsuit against the BBC.

Backstory: The BBC show Top Gear reviewed a Tesla, and gave it a glowing review, but noted that it was very expensive, that it would only last 55 miles if driven hard on a race track, that the brakes broke once during testing, that if you run out of charge you'd have to push it, and that at one point it overheated and suffered reduced performance. Tesla hit the ceiling and sued for libel over every negative comment in the review. But as even they eventually admitted, every single claim was absolutely true, and a judge threw the lawsuit out as completely groundless. Tesla's argument was that it may have been true, but it was misleading, but even in Britain the truth is an absolute defence for libel, as 30 seconds with Google would have told them.

Now they're going after _another_ news organisation, again claiming that a review contained lies. If they can't substantiate this one either, they're going to look like idiots.

<comment><USER32> Top Gear did not use the truth as a defense. On the contrary the judge ruled that the truth did not matter. In other words the judge ruled that Tesla would not be entitled to win even if Top Gear had lied. The case never got to the fact finding stage.

Tesla did have evidence that Top Gear lied -- the car had never run out of charge, even though Top Gear said it did. But the case never got to the stage where Tesla would present this evidence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Horrible reporting by TNW! Musk claims, "NYTimes article about Tesla range in cold is fake. Vehicle logs tell true story that he didn't actually charge to max & took a long detour"

If you read the NYT, [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled- on-the...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev- highway.html)

The reporter doesn't claim he had charged the battery fully in all occasions. He states how long he charged the car for and what the milage indicator provided.

I can argue Musk is trying to get ahead of the story and create doubt among potential buyers about the veracity of the story. That's all he needs to do.

Basically, Tesla will probably come out with data that shows the battery was not fully charged and hence why lower milage. However, the reporter says he only charged the car for the distance he thought he needed. Therefore, Tesla will be a head of the story and the headlines his PR will create is that the car was not fully charged. And most people, including readers of this site, will not do further investigation. Rest assure those who are still considering buying a Tesla will buy it not knowing if the battery might have a temperature range issue.

</comment><comment><USER34> The length of the detour really matters here. Even if Tesla's claims were true, unless there was truly malicious reporting going on, I think even this kind of basic negligence is still a valid point against the Model S. Consumers might forget to charge their car properly, or not take into account detours/pitstops when planning for the Model S's range.

Note -- I absolutely love Tesla and I can't wait for them to prove everyone wrong, but that still doesn't make the initial claim entirely invalid. I want to see the data before I make conclusions.

<comment><USER35> I don't really see how this is different than forgetting to put gas in a car, other than the larger amount of time it takes to charge a Tesla.

<comment><USER26> It's different because when you realize your mistake with a gasoline engine, as long as you aren't driving in eastern Utah or some similar remote location, you can easily stop at any one of thousands of convenient gas stations to correct your error. Perhaps that will be true someday for Tesla, but it isn't today.

<comment><USER36> That combined with the charging time is the only difference.

I thought it strange in the Top Gear review of the Roadster that they even mentioned it only got 55 miles on a full charge on their track (and faked it running out of charge). Most gasoline cars won't do much better when driving so flat-out. That is nothing unique to electrics whatsoever.

Using that as a basis to say "It simply doesn't work" was why Musk (rightly) is trying to cover himself when the press reviews. They seem to have some motive to defame Tesla. Nobody could say for sure if oil is behind it but it certainly smells fishy.

<comment><USER37> "that they even mentioned it only got 55 miles on a full charge on their track (and faked it running out of charge). Most gasoline cars won't do much better when driving so flat-out."

Uhm, even NASCAR vehicles go farther than 55 miles flat out. Most sports cars do not degrade that far. Even dropping down to 8 mpg would still net almost all sports cars over 100 mile range flat out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> For those interested, here's an interview with Elon Musk on CNBC this morning. He explains his reasoning pretty clearly.

<http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000147320>

I'm sure Elon Musk and Tesla are glad that they have the data logs for the trip. In my view, this is going to be key. All you need to do is compare the account by the journalist with the actual data and see where the discrepancies are.

It might be too earlier to tell w/o looking at the data ourselves, by if I had to bet I'd bet on Elon/Tesla for this one.

<comment><USER39> Well said: "if you had a gas vehicle, filled the tank halfway, meandered through downtown manhattan, and then expected to reach your previous destination people would just think you're a fool"

<comment><USER40> raced to your previous destination _

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> NYT takes facts seriously and they issue written corrections for even the most trivial inaccuracies. If the allegations by Musk are true, the article's author will be looking for a new job soon.

<comment><USER42> That's good, as according to everyone in this thread, all journalists do is lie and every action they take is malicious.

<comment><USER43> I had experience with journalist and they don't so much as lie as much as they "enhance the truth". Like your battery was lowish on cold weather but you still got there, but in your journal you write "Battery took cold badly and I was unsure if it would get there with the charge I had. By grace of gods and not Tesla I managed to get there". Compare that sentence to this "Battery worked below optimal when weather was below freezing, but I still got where I wanted." Which one sounds more appealing to general public? Which one is more sensational.

TL;DR [http://www.smbc- comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1623#c...](http://www.smbc- comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1623#comic)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I used to take for granted that what I read in the NYT and learned from other highly regarded sources was factual and thoughtful. Then I read an articles about a subject I knew really, really well and the reporter got it completely wrong. Then it happened again and again. This made me worry about the quality of the information on subjects I don't know about.

I began to realize that journalists are not experts in all things or sometimes even one thing. Instead they are usually simply good writers operating under tight deadlines. And their goal is to write pieces that attract the attention of readers not simply provide accurate information. Lastly they are humans who make mistakes and have biases.

Take everything you read with a grain of salt. Think about how likely it is to be correct and not sensationalized or biased in some way. Check with others sources before you add what you read to your knowledge. The most dangerous thing is to think you know something that is either not known or wrong.

</comment><comment><USER45> The NY Times article didn't pass the sniff test the first time I read it.

If you look at the map on the article, it clearly shows that the writer chose not to charge in Manhattan when remaining range read 79 miles and destination was 73 miles away (he barely made it). Later he leaves Norwich after only charging the car up to 32 miles of range remaining while the destination is 68 miles away... No wonder he ran out and had to be towed after 51 miles.

[http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/02/10/automobiles/10t...](http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2013/02/10/automobiles/10tesla- map.html)

Oddly, some of this data is conveniently excluded from the article. The writer claims Tesla cleared him to drive from Norwich to Milford (68 miles). But he fails to mention that at the time the car reported 32 miles of range remaining (As indicated in the data on the map). Something is very fishy here.

<comment><USER46> It does seem colossally stupid to drive a 79+ mile trip when the meter says you only have 32 miles left.

There are issues with how Tesla reports its charge and maintains it charge, but, seriously, why try a trip that the car is telling you you cannot make? (EDIT: and that's _after_ the car has been over-reporting its range for you the whole time. What, did you think it suddenly flipped the way it makes mistakes??)

ANOTHER EDIT: The writer says in his article: "after an hour they cleared me to resume the trip to Milford." The trip wasn't 79+ miles, it was about 46 + 11 miles. I wonder if it's going to be he-said-she-said about whether he was approved to make the drive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's a bit disingeious of Musk to propose that journalists repeat this trip, knowing full well that the problems reported in the original article stem from cold weather. The weather on the East Coast is getting warmer by the day. It is almost spring. Even if Tesla can tell each journalist to stop charging at Norwich at the same point they did originally (assuming they can determine that reliably), the battery state at that point, and going forward, will be different because of the weather.

The sensationalist part of this review is the bricking of the car. This happens shortly after the reporter claims that "after an hour they (Tesla) cleared me to resume the trip to Milford." So, any detour is only meaningful to the outcome of this review if it occurs after this clearance, because at that point Tesla HQ knows what the range of the car should be, and whether or not he will make it, and when to tell him to stop charging. Milford is a straight shot from Norwich. If a detour did occur in this critical period, it would reflect very badly on the author.

</comment><comment><USER48> The thing about product reviews in mainstream publications like the NYTimes, is that their goal isn't just to tell you how good the product is. Most of the readers aren't actually on the market for a Tesla, they just want to be entertained and feel like they learned something new. To reach these casual readers, the reviews really need to be narrative stories. "Range anxiety" makes for a very good narrative because it adds a layer of suspense (ie "will he make it?"), so it makes sense that the reviewer would have a motive for faking the review even if his goal isn't to hurt Tesla.

That being said I have no idea if the allegations are true and am eagerly awaiting Tesla's full blog post with evidence.

</comment><comment><USER49> This morning would have been a wonderful time to buy stock. TSLA was way down (due to this review?) and earnings are coming up soon. This makes me wonder if the NYTimes or this reporter had some ulterior motive; a conspiracy to discredit Tesla? A personal vendetta? Why would a reporter lie about the test?

<comment><USER50> There's probably a much simpler explanation: That automotive journalists are really lazy, have a story in mind before they ever drive the car in question, routinely do stuff like this, and are only being called out now because of black boxes being embedded into some newer cars such as Tesla's.

<comment><USER5> He was not an automobile journalist, which is probably why it reads like he has no concept of how cars work or that planning a trip to test a car's theoretical range limit in winter is a poor way to review a car. John Broder is on the "Green" beat:

[http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/peopl...](http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_m_broder/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> From the update to the submitted article: "Update: A New York Times statement as reported by CNBC

<https://twitter.com/CNBC>

doesn't mince its words: 'Jan. 10 article recounting a reporter's test drive in a Tesla Model S was completely factual [...] Any suggestion that the account was "fake" is, of course, flatly untrue.'"

Well, that joins issue directly with what Musk is claiming. Now it will be interesting to check the facts.

Earlier Hacker News thread about the New York Times review:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5191086>

AFTER EDIT: I wonder if the reporter had a GPS-enabled tracking device on his person while he was doing the reporting? Maybe, maybe not, but that would be one more way to establish where the reporter (and, thus, presumptively the vehicle) was at different times during the test drive.

<comment><USER10> The car has a GPS on it, and (for owners) theres a REST API from Tesla that will relay its coordinates to you. I assume they are logging positions when logging is enabled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> What is it about Elon Musk's companies constantly suing people? Tesla sued Top Gear for libel. SpaceX sued a safety consultant asking clarification about a rumor [1]. Now this tiff may well end in a lawsuit.

[1] [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/20/spacex_sues_consulta...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/20/spacex_sues_consultant/print.html)

<comment><USER52> Actually reading that article you link, that seems like a pretty massive mischaracterization of that lawsuit.

<comment><USER47> Yeah, it's a bad article, but the best I could find. The article is slanted because the it only contains quotes from SpaceX, so you hear only one side of the story, with nothing from the defense. The case was settled.

<comment><USER52> Unless there is absolutely no truth whatsoever to SpaceX's side of the story, that guy sounds like a major sleaze who deserved a lawsuit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> The review gave me the impression that the vehicle did not provide accurate (over a period of time) predictions of how much mileage was left. If that is the case, why should the vehicle logs be more accurate? If the car measures something wrong, the logs would reflect that.

<comment><USER54> Presumably the vehicle is logging its GPS position at regular intervals. That's a pretty uncontroversial thing to do.

Then, the car uses the GPS mileage data alongside numerous other inputs to update its cruising range estimate based on what it thinks the batteries' current state of charge is. As anyone who has ever used a laptop or a cell phone knows, that is a far-from-solved problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I admire Musk and love what he's doing in general. I think he's an inspirational entrepreneur. It makes sense that he's defending his company. Having said that I think this is an interesting tack to take. Firstly, this is the New York Times. I'm sure they take their integrity pretty seriously. Secondly, Musk has sued before so that would make them _particularly sensitive_ to ensuring that they got their facts and figures correct if they're going to post a negative article. Thirdly, I'm not sure how much of an argument Musk is really mounting here. There are still a bunch of charges left unaddressed. That the charge dissipated much faster than it was telling the driver. That cutting things like heating and speed were solutions? That it didn't have a sufficient charge to unlock a handbrake etc.

Why does this matter? Well, we all know Tesla is a cutting edge technology. Those who buy that car understand that they're going to take on additional hardships and risks vs a gasoline vehicle. Culturally, what message is Musk sending by attacking the author and avoiding many of the issues raised? If you buy a Tesla and experience problems do you want a company that questions your honesty and integrity or one that says "Sounds like a horrible experience let's do everything on our power to fix it?"

</comment><comment><USER4> The main thrust of the article seemed to be that Tesla's charging stations aren't sufficient in the Northeast, being almost at max range apart. I doubt even Musk would disagree with that.

<comment><USER5> No, the crux was that this car is useless because Tesla's charging stations are sufficient in the Northeast and that the car doesn't have the range that it should and that if you get this car it will leave you stranded.

Tesla has just started making their charging network so of course it's not sufficient in the Northeast, it's not sufficient anywhere. It's also not intended to be the sole supplier of electricity for your car, and the indented use of a Tesla vehicle is not long road trips. Most people will leave their home every day with a full charge and arrive home at night with almost a full charge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> From the NYT: "[The reporter] was never told to plug the car in overnight in cold weather, despite repeated contact with Tesla."

This sounds like a customer service failure to me.

<comment><USER57> If a person writing a car review were test-driving a brand new Ferrarri, and was in constant contact with customer service about something-or-other, do you think they'd tell them to fill up the gas tank? or drive carefully in snow?

No. They would assume a person writing a car review is not an idiot and understands basic car concepts.

<comment><USER58> But there are a lot more people familiar with gas based cars than electric cars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> If anyone even doubts whether the NYT are going to respond to this (of course they are), you can ping their public editor @sulliview, who's an immense treasure to the paper. She'll report on it, no doubt.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'm impressed that he doesn't hesitate to call out the NY Times. Musk clearly doesn't care about politics or tiptoeing around sensitive issues.

</comment><comment><USER20> Our culture is badly broken. When "the social contract" for broad swathes of society is so little regarded that _lying is a matter of course,_ then we have already reached worrying levels of dysfunction, of the sort that historians point out when they discuss the fall of the Roman Empire, Czarist Russia, or the USSR. A point all of those have in common: The denizens came to assume public information was false as a matter of course, as a time and sanity saving measure. Large swathes of our society think of lying, even when deceiving large swathes of the public, as a kind of sport, and profiting from such lying as a kind of serendipitous fortune to be exploited without conscience, like finding cash on the sidewalk.

Such attitudes are shoved in my face when I see exclamations like, "Pictures or it didn't happen!" It's the same when big media corporations trade in innuendo and conspiracy theories and deliberately sabotage the dissemination of knowledge for their own ends. Such attitudes are so pervasive, that large swathes of the population actually disbelieve in any kind of objective truth, and accept mere social proof as its substitute and superior.

It's entirely possible that the journalist in question is innocent of deception and only guilty of poor journalism and/or poor trip planning and/or insufficient UI design. However, the issue with the review and that of the social contract are entirely related. In a world where reality itself is relative and subject to social proof, there is no need to double check your facts or to prove the null hypothesis. In a world where science is just another fabricated self-serving belief system, there's no need to apply one's scientific literacy or application of physics learned in school when doing things like taking a car trip in winter. One only need know enough to read the dials and gauges to be a good consumer, then complain loudly if things do not go one's way.

True competence, be it in programming or journalism or any significant endeavor, requires diligence with and prostration to the truth. Our society as a whole has forgotten this and our society as a whole is oblivious to the price it is paying as a consequence.

Another way to think of it: Our society as a whole doesn't have the epistemological foundation needed for the level of technical sophistication it has.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is why range extenders will stay popular even as battery technology improves.

In ten years' time, I predict that straight battery-only electric vehicles will cost less than the gasoline equivalent and be VERY popular as commuter vehicles because gasoline prices will be over $6/gallon (especially if we build the Keystone XL pipeline to send more oil overseas).

One car in many households will likely require some kind of range extender, which increases the purchase and maintenance costs. There's a reason why SUVs are so rare in Europe: we've been spoiled by cheap gasoline in America.

<comment><USER62> Hopefully we'll be on capacitors by then. Perhaps backed by a battery, in a similar fashion to some hybrids today having a battery backed by gas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I think we've proven that we don't need the East Coast for: the PC revolution, the Internet revolution and the Mobile revolution.

They can sit out the electric car revolution as well...

Who the hell wants to go to "Milford, Conn." anyways ;)

</comment><comment><USER64> If this is true, then he should sue NYT or the author, unless the author admits it's true in another article. I've heard quite a few random people use the NYT article as an argument against Tesla/electric cars, and I think that article can have long term negative impact on electric cars (even if it won't be a complete deal-breaker for electric cars). So he needs to either get them to admit the review was not accurate, or sue them.

<comment><USER52> Didn't Tesla sue Top Gear for basically the same thing? I recall that didn't turn out well for Tesla, though perhaps the fact that Top Gear is widely recognized as being entertainment not serious journalism had something to do with that.

<comment><USER18> I don't know if their seriousness played into it. My understanding is that the judge ruled, essentially, that Top Gear was correct when they spoke about the car having extremely limited range _when driven on their race track_ and that no reasonable person would confuse range on a racetrack with regular driving.

(And IANAL, but the UK is somewhat infamous for its plaintiff-friendly libel laws.)

<comment><USER52> My impression was that the 'seriousness' came into play because they did not merely claim that the car had poor range on a track, but that it ran out of juice while they were testing it, which was not the case. Making untrue statements to make a true point about a limitation of the car was permissible since nobody reasonably expects anything else of Top Gear. I doubt a "serious" publication can get away with that sort of thing though.

I'm a fan of both Tesla and Top Gear, and Tesla's complaints about Top Gear always seemed a bit daft to me. That is mostly because of who Top Gear is though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I'm curious if a private owner tried to sue Tesla for range claims if Tesla would magically show up with the logging data for the customer.

This will a be moot point with drones in the near future though, most vehicles will have a 24/7 travel log from the government, just like they track all phone calls domestically without warrants. It will be super easy for a cluster of drones to track every car from start to destination.

</comment><comment><USER66> I went to school in Newark Delaware and lived in Groton Connecticut.It's a long drive. There is almost always traffic somewhere.

I wouldn't expect an electric car to make it without a charge. I would usually fill up my gas tank twice. The fact that they made it close is great. The fact that the charging stations are that far apart sucks.

<comment><USER67> That's a chicken and egg problem. Electrical charging stations are far cheaper to build than gas stations. At least until there's enough electrical cars to require an upgrade of the whole infrastructure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> FTA:

> "the tested Tesla was filmed being pushed into the shed in order to show > what would happen if the Roadster had run out of charge."

Is this true? Is there no "emergency portable charge kit" that one could haul to anyplace with electricity and get a quick charge, possibly good for ~15 miles? If not then I smell a business opportunity.

<comment><USER39> AFAIK every car comes with a portable charger that works from standard wall outlets.

<http://www.teslamotors.com/charging#/outlet>

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> If you are rich enough to own a Tesla, you probably also are rich enough to have a second car or to fly. I've been considering getting a Tesla, and long distance doesn't matter that much to me because I'd take a 2 hour flight over a 7 hour drive any day.

</comment><comment><USER70> Challenging thing. I agree the NYT article read like a hatchet job but still. Nobody likes having their baby called ugly, the response though could be a bit more measured. Looking forward to Tesla's log analysis and their take on the situation.

</comment><comment><USER17> Maybe when Tesla becomes a more global brand, they'll start using heat pumps for heating.

It takes some effort to make a car that works in different conditions. Some brands that might work great in Central Europe have bad reputation in cold climates. Failure to start, puny indoor heating power, door insulation freezing shut, water lodging in concave spots and freezing. It is common enough that it is probably a conscious strategic choice to just not test / fix it. Then again, locally built houses also often fail in the weather. I guess humans never learn.

</comment><comment><USER71> Yeah I met an owner of one of these and not a single problem was with it...As enthusiasts we read articles to know about what makes something great.

FWIW, NYT is the last place I would go for a good car review ;)

</comment><comment><USER72> Good for Elon. Every CEO should stand up for his product like that.

</comment><comment><USER73> Forgetting to turn off the tape recorder: classic journalism trick.

</comment><comment><USER74> Even if the reporter fabricated parts of the story, aren't the concerns about driving in cold weather still relevant? Any Tesla owners want to weigh in?

<comment><USER5> No more so than the concerns of driving in warm weather (AC uses electricity). You get less than optimal mileage in less than optimal conditions. This is true for any vehicle. My gas powered car jumps around on its range calculation too.

<comment><USER75> One big difference is that heat (and thus warm air) is a by-product of internal combustion, so a typical car's heater will ALWAYS work, which turns out to be critical for survival in certain climates. Having the A/C go down in extremely hot weather will leave you uncomfortable; having the heater go down in extremely cold weather can kill you.

<comment><USER76> > One big difference is that heat (and thus warm air) is a by-product of > internal combustion, so a typical car's heater will ALWAYS work, which turns > out to be critical for survival in certain climates.

It'll work as long as you have gas, just as the Tesla's will work as long as you have battery.

<comment><USER77> Was just what I was thinking. Running out of gas, or having your engine crash in -40 degree Celcius weather is a life-threatening situation if you've been stupid and not packed any clothes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I own a Chevy Volt and it gets about 20% less range in the ~32 degrees F temperatures we have around here in NYC environs right now.

</comment><comment><USER79> This is silly. It's like buying a toaster and then complaining when it fails to make panini.

You don't get an electric vehicle for the purpose of driving from DC to New York.

I have always plugged my EV in on a 120 volt circuit. It gets about 50-60 miles of charge per night. My commute is 10 miles. The car is full every morning, no matter how cold it is.

YMMV

</comment><comment><USER80> _Tesla blog coming soon detailing what actually happened on Broder's NYTimes "range test". Also lining up other journalists to do same drive._

I'm not a journalist but I would be more than happy to test drive and do a write-up! I would think it would be pretty easy to find 1000 journalists willing to do this.

<comment><USER47> Unfortunately, it's not an exact repro, as the original journalist's problems had to do with cold weather, and the weather is getting warmer as we speak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Is this a design problem with the Tesla? With my petrol car I know when the car is completely filled with fuel. It is obvious in Tesla?

Pure speculation. This could be a UI problem. The journalist thought the car was charged and ready to go but it wasn't.

</comment><comment><USER82> Based on Tesla's past claims against Top Gear (that turned out in favor of Top Gear in court), I would give the NY Times the benefit of the doubt here. Especially since Tesla hasn't produced any evidence yet.

<comment><USER32> That court case does not mean as much as you think it does. Just because Top Gear won, does not mean that they were truthful. The judge merely said that even if Top Gear lied their lie would not be legally actionable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Is it terribly smart picking fights with the media when you're in the consumer business. Good luck to him for taking it on.

</comment><comment><USER84> NYT says the author drove the first 114 miles in 84 minutes (~81 mph avg)....

</comment><comment><USER85> Tesla needs to pay gas stations to install 220v receptacles and include an adapter kit with every Model S that will fit all of the common plugs out there. That's all there is to it. Consumers aren't going to want to buy these cars en masse if they're scared of being stranded somewhere, and they're going to be scared of being stranded somewhere if it's 100 miles either way to the nearest charging station, regardless of how much range the car has left.

Are you reading this, Elon? Pay gas stations to install 220v receptacles, and map the locations of those stations onto your cars' GPS systems. Make the kit, and make a compartment for the kit. Make an announcement that you're going to start doing this, and start doing it NOW.

</comment><comment><USER86> I told you so right here on HN, just after the journalist posted his sensational article.

This is all too common from car journalists: some of them will try to fake any test they can to try to harm the reputation of an upcoming car many people do believe in.

I'm not saying that journalist did it: all I said is that you should _always_ be suspicious of claims like that by journalists. Many of them are little attention whores so you have to read between the lines.

And wait for more tests, counter-claims, car owners reports, etc.

It's sad that the journalists (not this one specifically) lack integrity because you can never know if an article was honestly done or not (like in this case).

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm willing to bet that guy was paid off by an oil company.

<comment><USER87> Really? I'll take that bet. Shall we say $1,000?

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> hmmm lets see: a journalist of media behemoth that major stake is in hands of the same people that have stakes in gasoline car manufacturers drafted a negative review for a company with a product that may forever shift the way we drive cars and how much we spend for this privilege...

> Tesla Model S was completely factual [...] Any suggestion that the account > was 'fake' is, of course, flatly untrue."

Yes of course, CNBC never lied in the entire history of a written word! [1].

Also, my memory ma not serve well, but weren't the CNBC journalist send to take photos from camps in Afganistan and when it turned out that there were no camps, they found some fence and faked the story of a reporter being inside the "camp" by taking photos through said fence?

[1] [http://www.imediaethics.org/News/3061/Cnbc_corrects__apologi...](http://www.imediaethics.org/News/3061/Cnbc_corrects__apologizes_for_fake_2011_story_about_nba_lockout___escorts.php)</comment>


Amiga oriented alternative OS MorphOS 3.8 for PowerPC released - <AUTHOR> http://morphos-team.net/releasenotes/3.8 <comment><USER2> MorphOS has got the best graphics driver for PowerPC's. I once tried to play a 720p movie on a Mac mini G4 and only with the MorphOS did it play smoothly albeit with the audio going asynchronous after 4-5 minutes.

<comment><USER3> So it's smooth but doesn't do synch properly? That's kind of a deal breaker – keeping in synch is (or should be) a higher priority than not skipping frames.

<comment><USER2> You're correct. But that was about 2-3 years ago when I tried it. That might have been fixed by this new release, perhaps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I always wondered who is using MorphOS and why does so. Also, how is it in a day to day usage, does somebody develop on that platform, how big is the community and so on.

<comment><USER5> I'm not. My most recent PPC box has a G3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm 19 and I've used MorphOS for almost a year, sometimes even as main OS (it does its job pretty well).

In short, the OS is very good, but the devteam isn't - they're just old Amiga scene chaps with closed minds and some sort of schizophrenia. They hate FLOSS, they can do a huge flamewar if you say 'Linux' or 'Unix', they don't care about users which they doesn't met.

On a technical side, it's just a Quark kernel (L4 fork) with ABox "VM" which is compatible with m68k binaries via JIT and AmigaOS 3.x api via compatible MorphOS API.

Overall pros: * Very fast OS * High responsibility of UI, low latency on FS operations * Backwards compatibility with AmigaOS 3.x software which doesn't call Amiga's hardware directly * AmigaOS4 compatibility can be achieved using external library, but it's not so good * Lots of native software written especially for MorphOS * _nix software can be ported using MorphOS SDK and LibNIX, but it 's not seem good by community and developers. _ Port of SDL library, which can help you with porting SDL and OpenGL games * Own browser (Odyssey) with WebKit engine, but sometimes you need to prepare own ca-certs, cause maintainer doesn't packages they all

Cons: * No memory protection - when something crashed, your system likely will be unusable * Tasks cannot be killed easily (see above) * Limitation to 1,5 GB of RAM "because compatilibity" (xD) * Uses own properitary technologies, APIs, GUI toolkit * Developers and community doesn't like open source technologies * Paid license: * 111 EUR for PowerBook G4, iBook G4, PowerMac G5 * 75 EUR for PowerMac G4, eMac G4, Pegasos I or II * 49 EUR for Sam460[e[xp]] * 45 EUR for Efika 5200B License is bound to hardware which needs to be registered by internet connection, you'll receive a keyfile which is a system driver for removing time limitations * Lots of poers are outdaed * You need to grab an external E-UAE emulator to use a software which needs to acces Amiga hardware, it was received a JIT some month ago. * System doesn't support NVIDIA cards and won't be * SDK uses GCC 2.95 (!!!) and system is compiled using it, but GCC 4.5 is an option * Part of API and "LibNIX" is an wrapped OpenBSD libc * I've a some suspicion about violating GPL license. * I've ported a Vim some time ago, but they rejected to add it for MorphOS-Files (WWW-based package manager), they use own Scintilla-based editor * Users and developers doesn't care about security * You'll not found multiuser capabilities, or any servers.

But decision is yours, I've pointed only some causes, but I feel that I can write a book about my experiences with this OS.

If you have any questions, leave a comment here.

</comment><comment><USER7> Maybe link to something more enlightening than a release notes page or is everyone here assumed to be familiar with MorphOS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Try this: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MorphOS](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MorphOS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I saw it many years ago when the first Amiga PPC addons came out, but I had no idea this was still going on.

What are its main selling points?

<comment><USER9> The main selling points is to run an AmigaOs like OS on cheap PowerPC (Apple hardware).

It is a hobby. Some people prefer to build the ultimate DOS box for playing DOS games and demos on real hardware or go nuts and play with expensive japanese computers (NEC 9801, X68000 or FM Towns).

<comment><USER10> I suspect that while it may have been relatively cheap hardware at the time this project started, it's not cheap anymore by almost any measure.

<comment><USER11> To build on a similar comment to this effect, I have four Apple-built PowerPC machines. In order of acquisition:

* 1 eMac (G4 processor, Radeon graphics): $40-worth of labor * 1 PowerBook G4: $80-worth of labor * 1 Power Mac G5 (single processor): free (was being thrown out) * 1 XServe G5 (dual processor): free (was being thrown out)

Meanwhile, you can buy quite a bit of Apple's PowerPC hardware in working condition for anywhere between $25 and $200+ on eBay. Many of them will come with either OS X Tiger or a botched OS X Leopard (which I've found to be notoriously unusable on most PowerPC Macs). I personally run OpenBSD on my own such machines (I'd dabbled with GNU/Linux previously, but there were significant stability issues, particularly with hardware support; while OpenBSD's hardware support isn't that much better, at least it's more-or-less consistent across targets, so when graphics enhancements arrive on one platform (for example), they'll typically hit my PowerPC boxen, too (which is precisely what happened with 5.5 when OpenBSD adopted a DRI implementation)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> isn't this the OS that degrades it's performance after a certain amount of time & then prompts you to buy a license?

<comment><USER13> Yes, I just installed it an hour ago on a Mac Mini G4 I had laying around...

Even the bootable "live"version does it.

It is a two hour limit. Very noticeable, like a 2 second lag on the mouse.

To register, you must run a program in the install, that ties the registration to your unique hardware/id signature.

Pretty snappy before the two hour limit on 10 year old hardware. Works great on 1280x1024 display, not so much luck on the 1080p monitor here.

<comment><USER12> to me this seems an odd way to get people to purchase a license, I wonder if it actually works to any great extent..

<comment><USER14> I wonder why this is commercial; no more than a handful of people will install/use this powerpc version will they?

<comment><USER15> In the Amiga scene, people expect to get paid for their work.

<comment><USER6> Have you ever seen paid Amiga demos? :>

<comment><USER15> Demos are an outgrowth of the software-piracy scene. Most developers of non- grey-market software expected to be compensated for their work.

In fact there was one case where Microsoft used open source to destroy an entire software niche on Amiga: they acquihired the developer of Bars & Pipes Professional and got him to open source it, destroying the market for Amiga sequencing software. When you consider that musicians have kept their old Atari STs going until well into the 2000s, that market was bigger than you might have supposed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Posterous discontinued April 30 - <AUTHOR>

Posterous launched in 2008. Our mission was to make it easier to share photos and connect with your social networks. Since joining Twitter almost one year ago, we've been able to continue that journey, building features to help you discover and share what's happening in the world – on an even larger scale. <comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't a big Posterous user but I liked their mission and was hoping they would be around longer. I understand it's hard to maintain a service that aims to disrupt the incumbent. I would have sold in absence of any other option. Perhaps a solution is a crowd funding application for free service we want to keep around instead of them being acquired and shelved by tech giants. Or we could just pay for the service.

</comment><comment><USER2> There's an ArchiveTeam project underway to back it up <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5305073></comment>


Real World Crypto conference program, scheduled for Jan 9-11, 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://rwc.iacr.org/2019/program.html <comment><USER2> Who will attend to RWC?</comment>


How Humans Got Such Big Brains - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/a-new-genetic-clue-to-how-our-brains-got-so-big/561602/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> this is interesting. by the way, human brains evolved in three main stages. the first stage being the animal brain, it's small but contains the most important and basic skills for survival.</comment>


Transparent Reactive Programming - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/meteor/meteor/wiki/Tracker-Manual

<comment><USER2> I've been playing with/learning meteor for the past week. The reactivity is no doubt a great feature. It's a great joy to develop with meteor too, with hot code pushes, the app automatically updates to include your file changes on the fly. It's great.

The ability to create custom reactive objects is sweet. Plus you can stop reactivity on the fly. Thus far I'm really enjoying it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Meteor's reactive style is so incredibly powerful that it's useful even outside the Meteor ecosystem. In case anyone is looking to use this, I made a fork of Meteor's Tracker for use in any Node.js or browser app: [https://www.npmjs.com/package/trackr](https://www.npmjs.com/package/trackr) (shameless plug)

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm quite tired so I might be mistaken here, but autorun reminds me of Knockout's computed properties.

      function viewModel() {
        this.observable = ko.observable();
        this.updateWhenObsChanged = ko.computed(function() {
          console.log(this.observable());  // logs whenever the observable changes
          return this.observable();  // see template example below
        });
      }
      ko.applyBindings(viewModel);

Any observables used in a computed property are automatically watched. The computed property can contain any JS code; it makes the function inside reactive.

Knockout also has a built in templating library where you can do things like:

It seems like in this library, one area that's more flexible than KO is that you can create various reactive data sources. However, in KO you can essentially do the same thing by updating an observable. For instance, you could have this.webSocketResponse = ko.observable() and call it with a new value for every websocket response you give.

Now for me, the step beyond this is a library like Reactive Extensions (RxJS for Javascript) which instead of having stateful observables gives you async streams of events. For instance, say that you have two buttons, #1 and #2, and you want to do something when button one is pressed before button two:

      var buttonOne = $('#1');
      var buttonOneClickStream = Rx.Observable.fromEvent(buttonOne, 'click');
      var buttonTwo = $('#2');
      var buttonTwoClickStream = Rx.Observable.fromEvent(buttonTwo, 'click');
      var lastTwoClicks = buttonOneClickStream
        .map(function () { return 1; }) // clicking button one produces a 1
        .merge(  // merge buttonOneClickStream's output with the buttonTwoClickStream
          buttonTwoClickStream.map(function() { return 2; }) // clicking button two produces a 2
        )
        .bufferWithCount(2); // emit an array of two values once we have two values from our merged streams
      var firstThenSecond = function (arr) {
        return arr[0] === 1 && arr[1] === 2;
      };
      var clickedFirstThenSecond = lastTwoClicks
        .filter(firstThenSecond);  // only emit events that match our filter
      var notifyOnSuccess = clickedFirstThenSecond.subscribe(function() {
        console.log("woot");
      });

The nice thing about this approach is that you can build up a variety of streams and merge them in a reusable and functional way. While this is possible in KO, I find that unless I'm very disciplined I ended up with a mess of computed properties scattered throughout my app. Since in KO we are using the observer pattern, which is stateful, this can cause some complexities. But with stateless streams, we have a more declaritive and perhaps even "imperative" approach.

The step beyond this it to tie these streams into something more advanced than JQuery, like virtualdom. I started working on this only to find someone else has already accomplished a lot more than me in [https://github.com/staltz/cycle](https://github.com/staltz/cycle) However, I think I might like a template-based approach using something like handlebars.

Anyways I'm quite tired so I might be mistaken in my assesment of this library. But I think anyone interested in reactive programming might like KO, RxJS, and Cycle. KO's worked quite nicely for me, despite my complaints about the limitations of stateful observers.

Complete example of RxJS: [http://jsfiddle.net/bjhyvvjs/](http://jsfiddle.net/bjhyvvjs/)

How to grok reactive programming: [https://gist.github.com/staltz/868e7e9bc2a7b8c1f754](https://gist.github.com/staltz/868e7e9bc2a7b8c1f754)

Why React.js isn't actually reactive: [http://staltz.com/dont- react/#/](http://staltz.com/dont-react/#/)

Edit: Argh I'm so sorry about the bad code rendering... I forgot to set translate_tabs_to_spaces in Sublime Text :( It should be good now!

<comment><USER5> Hrm, do you mean that you use RxJS with knockout to alleviate the mess of computed properties? Or switch to RxJS/Cycle entirely?

<comment><USER4> I haven't actually tried using both RxJS and Knockout together, but it's something I'm thinking about doing. It might seem strange to merge these two different approaches, but I'm a fan of MVVM (which KO espouses) and of KO's templating and component functionality. To get it working, the callback in an RxJS subscribe method would set a KO observable, which would then be bound to the view.

IIRC KO's author is familiar with RxJS; he made KO and reduced the concepts to observables (of which there are similar objects in RxJS) and computed properties as he felt it was more straightforward for the typical dev in not requiring one to make the paradigm shift to stream composition.

I think that KO, especially when using components for encapsulation and reuse, can be a very powerful tool. But once I started combining KO with Bluebird for promise combinators, I started to understand the benefits of the stream-based approach better (in RxJS promises are just another source of events, which is a very powerful tool that I should have mentioned in the original post).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems like you'd have to avoid having async code inside of an autorun, otherwise when it resumes `Tracker.currentComputation` could be different?</comment>


Swallowing the elephant (part 1) - <AUTHOR> https://pharr.org/matt/blog/2018/07/08/moana-island-pbrt-1.html <comment><USER2> Previous discussion [1].

        My adventures getting Disney's Moana island scene to render well with Pbrt (pharr.org)
        463 points by dsr12 3 months ago | cached | hide | past | web | favorite | 46 comments

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17546915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17546915)

</comment><comment><USER3> Another series on this mammoth dataset:

1\. [https://schuttejoe.github.io/post/disneybsdf/](https://schuttejoe.github.io/post/disneybsdf/)

2\. [https://schuttejoe.github.io/post/disneypostmortem/](https://schuttejoe.github.io/post/disneypostmortem/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Render pipeline work appears to be 75% engineering and 25% intuition based on analyzing the output. The sheer number of files in this one scene makes the benefit of multiple threads really clear.</comment>


How do I get help for an open source project? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nkiermaier/dyalikeblags <comment><AUTHOR> I have a pretty cool project I'm working on I think people will like and will be useful.

How does one find technical rails help for an open source project? (I want to kick monologues ass)

I needz rails help. Plz.

<comment><USER2> Your readme doesn't really make it very clear what your project is, there's also no other documentation. You need to sell your project to the developer visitors and make it easy to participate.</comment></comment>


Writing node.js applications in C# - erik-kallen http://www.erik-kallen.se/blog/writing-nodejs-applications-in-csharp <comment><AUTHOR> What exactly is the point here? If you want to write C#, just use ASP.NET and MVC 4. You will certainly save yourself a lot of headaches, and you can still do everything async, etc. From what I can tell, the purpose of Node.js is to reduce the number of technologies that a web dev has to use and understand. You already need to use JavaScript on the client side, so using the same thing on the server side allows code reuse, knowledge sharing, etc.

It seems like what the author really wants is ASP.NET on the server, and Script# on the client side. Then the whole stack is C#. Or perhaps he would find TypeScript an acceptable middle-ground on the client. But I don't understand why you would choose Node.js on the server if you hate JavaScript, does not compute.

<comment><USER2> MVC is actually pretty damn clunky. It has a lot of built-ins which are just frustrating (like IPrincipal, ugh). Also there are loads and loads of weird quirks that pop up as soon as you start trying to do anything like returning JSON.

MVC was a huge step forward from the old ASP.Net, but it's still making a lot of frankly odd decisions or suddenly bizarre behaviours in the background (e.g. [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1975983/how-can-i- disable...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1975983/how-can-i-disable-http- keep-alive-in-asp-net-mvc))

I think one of the reasons node.js is so great is that it just cuts out almost everything and gives you direct control over what is returned. MVC still mucks around with everything trying to be 'helpful' as it's really built on ASP.Net in the background.

To many of us, javascript is still one of the worst mainstream language around today.

Still, why not just make node.cs instead one wonders? Perhaps the existing ecosystem.

<comment><USER3> can you elaborate on the quirks around returning JSON with asp.net MVC? its a pretty common usecase.

<comment><USER2> There's a load of little things that are gotchas, but an example that pops into my head is that it wasn't compatible with default jQuery for example. If you didn't ask specifically for a content-type of application/json, which jQuery didn't by default, it would throw a hissy fit. It meant mucking around with the ajax object meaning you couldn't use certain jQuery shortcut methods. Regardless of what you 'told' MVC to do.

So there's a bunch of things it's doing you're not even aware that it is nor have asked it to do.

Think that was MVC 3? I've been using it since the first version, it's much better than it started (the original JSON support was awful), but you still every now and then get a WTF moment.

For example I still really have no idea the 'right' way to return 404 or 500 error pages. I swear they change their mind every release.

<comment><USER4> By default MVC 4 will return JSON so you don't need to specify the content- type unless you want something that isn't JSON.

<comment><USER2> It's not the return type, it was the request type. It didn't like if you requested it with plain/text instead of application/json. Which was jQuery's json method's default.

<comment><USER4> plain/text gives you JSON in MVC 4. I understood what you were saying, the default in MVC 4 is now to return JSON unless you specify otherwise.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, but this is my whole point. Finally in version 4 they stop mucking around with the requests _before_ they give it to you. Someone, somewhere in the depths of MS clearly believe they understand HTTP better than you do. And keep guessing what you really 'meant'.

Even though they quite clearly don't understand and actually really don't get HTTP. For example take the fact that it's nigh impossible to get the actual request body in ASP.Net. Who's bright idea was that?

In reality every single interface, every single framework they've produced so far has shown a woeful lack of understanding about the web in general and pretty much how it's used outside their world. And I say this as someone who's primarily programmed in VBScript, VB6, C#, Silverlight, ASP.Net and ASP.Net MVC.

I keep almost jumping ship and then they just kinda fix it and I stick around hoping they're not going to make the same mistakes. But they do, jeesus, MVCs ajax stuff is unsurprisingly fucking awful.

But that's the problem with MVC and anything MS led, they don't get the web, they don't get javascript, they keep making incredibly silly decisions.

A good example. Every time I hear 'unobtrusive' js, I just want to scream. _They're_ the cause of this made up problem. No-one else was doing js like that in 2010, no-one else needed unobtrusive javascript. Just MS. There's no such thing as unobtrusive javascript, there's just not writing idiotic magic code like a fucking retard like MS constantly do when it comes to javascript.

And don't even get me started on their 'web services' or WCF. Both deserve to die in a fire.

TL;DR; I love C#, think it's the best language available today by far. I hate asp.net though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It strikes me that there's a much simpler solution, and that is to use TypeScript. It has all the VS intellisense that's required and none of the boilerplate in the OP's solution.

<http://www.typescriptlang.org>

</comment><comment><USER6> There is already a node.js analogue that runs on .net and hosts .net <https://github.com/jacksonh/manos>

Hasn't been updated in a long time. Not sure why it isn't getting any love, maybe something better came along. Seems to me it should be more performant on equal hardware.

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't believe Javascrip is really _that_ awful that anyone would rather go through all this trouble, rather than just write JS..

Maybe it has more to do with people being to reliant on IDE's, which he, kind of, admits to anyway..

I can't believe that any IDE is _that_ great that anyone would rather go through all this trouble, rather than just use something else..

<comment><USER8> I think in this case, it isn't about being dependent on Visual Studio, but C#.

<comment><USER9> The two go hand in hand. Aside from a very small cross section of Mono users, most C# users are very dependent on Visual Studio.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not more than month ago when this project was announced people were praising it. (No wonder, it features a fairly complete subset of C# - it's free and open source, it works and it's great - mad props to the creator keep up the good work!) Now when the author presents a use case people are throwing rocks. (At least this is my impression by reading some of the comments). I don't know about you, but I feel bad about it. It's the same story everytime a topic of compiling to JS is brought up. The JS "crowd" steps in with their "wisdom" of why it's a bad idea to do "X" and all they do is criticize...

</comment><comment><USER11> May want to take a look at ServiceStack, nice lightweight alternative to MVC with an extensive architecture providing for super easy and high performance ORM, JSON/JSV serialization/de-serialization, POCO DTO's with no-effort endpoints!

<http://www.servicestack.net/>

</comment><comment><USER12> One of the key benefits of node.js is that people who are great with JS can write server code and you have one language stack less to worry about. You can with that (watch for security issues) also share code & objects between the server and browser.

Can't see how this fits into that.

</comment><comment><USER13> When I read about Node.js, the first selling point people mention is how you can reuse code on the client and server sides. For me, the main selling point is that it's Javascript. When I see new variants of js, developed to "fix" js, it makes me want to cry.

<comment><USER14> Currently, reusing code on client and server is far from the first selling point. Companies like Meteor and Groupon are pushing in that direction quite heavily, but for mere mortals it's still limited to reusing a few core libraries like underscore, async or templating.

Reusing experience and knowledge, and reducing the cost of context switching, those are very clear and positive advantages.

On the topic of sharing code, these should be interesting: the 'pipe dream' ( <http://keithnorm.com/spainjs-pipedream/> ) and the 'holy grail' ( <http://thatconf.chrisjpowers.com/> ).

<comment><USER15> Thanks for the "pipe dream" link, I found the conference talk on youtube and enjoyed it a lot. The reusable code 'function' of node is still too non- obvious to achieve without the right mix of tools and this talk gave a nice intro for a solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "JavaScript is the only language people feel like they don't need to learn to use." -- Crockford</comment>