The right way to position against competition - <AUTHOR> http://blog.asmartbear.com/competitive-positioning.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fsmartbear+%28A+Smart+Bear%3A+Startups+%2B+Marketing+%2B+Geekery%29 <comment><USER2> Another reason why you have no competition: there is no market.

Sometimes we delude ourselves that we found a niche no one has addressed when in fact there is no niche at all. This can be due to poor research, but as stupid as it sounds, it happens. It happened to me, at least.

I spent a lot of time building a product on zone diet just believing that because there were a lot of people following it and people buying products, there existed also a market of people willing to plan their diet with a computer program. It was my first software and I was very naive. But when I released it I realized that it was not possible to reach this market: there were no blogs about it and other marketing strategies were still unable to reach a significant number of customers. People simply did not bother about a "problem" that was just in my (and my friend's) mind. The customer where unreachable because the market was non existent.

So, if you find yourself thinking that you have no competition, go back asking the other question: is there a market for this?

<comment><USER3> Wow, that brings back painful memories. In high school I built a program called the B3D Tweak Utility, an editor for the Blitz3D file format (a RAD game tool). I sold maybe 30 or so copies for $20.

Encouraged that I could sell something online and see a return, I followed it up a crazy GUI build tool with Python scripting that supported a ton of extensions for eg building the demo and full versions of a product up to the install file. Completely scratching my own itch, and it took a few months of work.

I got zero sales. I posted on my usual dev forums with about two replies. The only email I ever got about it was asking whether I was planning a Mac version, which he'd absolutely need before he'd consider using it.

Thinking now about how much money I could make if I worked that hard on something for 2 months today makes me ill... but I'm not sure there are any short cuts around making those painful mistakes in the beginning. Experiencing the bottom (i.e. investing time with 0 return) has made me laser focused on market fit before I start any product today.

<comment><USER4> Similar experiences here in the past as well. Plus some painful learning experiences with advertising. Had one product I spent several hundred dollars on Google advertising. Product had zero sales. Then later I released a different product. Spent zero on advertising -- just some self-promotion, social media presence, tweets, and some free entries submitted on niche- relevant sites --- and of course, it made hundreds of dollars in sales! Totally counter-intuitive to my then-arguably-naive thinking. But useful learning experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _A chart with one row for each "feature" and one column for each of six "competitors." There's checks and X's everywhere, except of course a glowing, highlighted column representing your company which just happens to be full of checks. C'mon, everyone knows this is bullshit; it's insulting._

Ouch. That one hurts ==> <http://foreverlist.com/why#comparison_chart>

I always thought it was a decent way to showcase your strengths, not a way to insult anyone. Obviously this comparison chart could include a row called "traffic volume" in which they would all blow away Foreverlist, but why would I showcase that?

Is this kind of comparison chart really that bad? What would you suggest?

<comment><USER6> Using a feature comparison chart to try to explain your BENEFITS to a customer is entirely different than using it in a presentation to a potential investor to justify your market strategy.

That said, the ForeverList comparison chart is a bit overwhelming and could use some sprucing up, design-wise. You might also be more effective if you just drove your primary benefit home instead of listing so many different features/points of distinction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I was briefly a tech journalist, "Tell me about your competition" was a required question for any interview (even for dominant players in a market). I was surprised by how many people seemed to stumble on it, but I guess they were worried about how it would affect the narrative of what I was writing. I always had a lot of respect for really honest, thoughtful answers.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is good advice for how to think about the competitive landscape even if you aren't pitching investors.

</comment><comment><USER9> > It's true that this industry hasn't yet seen a software

> solution, but that's not because they hate computers,

> but rather that it hasn't been possible to address

> that market with software. Now it is because (pick one):

A question to the author of the post: why the "pick one" qualifier?

Is it because any one of the reasons given should be sufficient?

Is it because more than one could be dangerous or at least counterproductive?

<comment><USER10> Oh no reason, it could be more than one. Just a figure of speech, sort of like a Cosmo quiz. :-)

Probably if you said "all of these" that's too good to be true, but surely 1-4 is normal if it's really the case.

<comment><USER9> Thanks. I was just worried for a moment, because two of those points describe almost exactly the key advantages we see for a new venture! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." --Henry Ford

<comment><USER12> Of course, faster horses and more importantly other car manufacturers were Ford's competition. That's the whole point of the article.

Even as the bona fide leader, Ford was less than 1/3 of the entire industry.</comment></comment>


Comparing clusterings–an information based distance [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047259X06002016/pdf?md5=71251a6300127946404246c8f8d8f7ea&pid=1-s2.0-S0047259X06002016-main.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Note this is the paper on the information theoretic metric, the "Variation of Information":

"It is closely related to mutual information; indeed, it is a simple linear expression involving the mutual information. Unlike the mutual information, however, the variation of information is a true metric, in that it obeys the triangle inequality" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variation_of_information](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variation_of_information)).</comment>


Show HN: taskdb – personal task tracker - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/andrey-utkin/taskdb/wiki/Live-demo <comment><AUTHOR> I was a TaskWarrior user in 2016-2018, but then I decided to make a bold experiment and track my tasks in a PostgreSQL database instead. The results were good enough for me to stick with it and continually improve it. Today it's a lean yet powerful toolkit which I use via

\- calendaring applications of my choice (courtesy of vdirsyncer),

\- visual dashboards (courtesy of Grafana),

\- spreadsheet-like visual editor of SQL table (cheers, OmniDB),

\- Gantt charts (thanks MermaidJS),

\- task decomposition charts (hi Graphviz),

\- CLI utilities,

\- direct SQL querying, which is to stay an essential user interface.

What it is: [https://github.com/andrey- utkin/taskdb/wiki](https://github.com/andrey-utkin/taskdb/wiki)

Screenshots and how to launch demo container with the software and the demo datasets: [https://github.com/andrey-utkin/taskdb/wiki/Live- demo](https://github.com/andrey-utkin/taskdb/wiki/Live-demo)

Why I started it, how I am going to run it and why I think it is a good idea: [https://github.com/andrey- utkin/taskdb/wiki/Goals,-motivatio...](https://github.com/andrey- utkin/taskdb/wiki/Goals,-motivation,-design-ideas)

I hope some of you will find it interesting, or even want to try to use it, or maybe use the same approach with other systems of their choice.

Sorry for the lack of documentation - up to now I am the only user of it and my workflows still evolve rapidly.

I would like to mention the recent "Show HN: Intention app" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22591311](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22591311) which features not just tree-ish structure for your tasks, but directed acyclic graphs. I think this is a Very Good Thing for making sense of your activities. taskdb allows you to do DAGs (or semilattices, which I think is a more specific term), too, but this is not demonstrated in this demo. Stay tuned for next demo :)</comment>


A World Without Power (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://jacquesmattheij.com/a-world-without-power/ <comment><USER4> _> Infrastructure is invisible, as long as it works. And only when it fails do you realize just how much we are all dependent on it and how badly we are able to cope with such infrastructure being unavailable for any length of time._

I grew up in hurricane country. We are born and mostly live our entire lives suspended in a giant web of infrastructure and support systems. When you're born into it, it's natural take it for granted and treat that as the baseline. But every now and then you have an experience that makes you realize just how far down below the ground really is, how far it is to fall, and how few cables need to fray before people start dropping.

I'm not one of those doomsday preppers who seems to relish preparing for the zombie apocalypse. I think the much more rational approach is to strengthen the web itself so that we don't fall in the first place. But I'm _definitely_ aware how quickly and how badly things can go.

Hurricane Katrina is the canonical example. Over a thousand people died in the middle of a well-developed urban area, in the richest country on Earth, from a disaster that everyone knew was coming some day. The hurricane didn't kill those people. The city and state's complete failure to engineer robust infrastructure did. If that same hurricane had hit an equally populated city elsewhere, the outcome could have been entirely different.

<comment><USER5> Not a prepper either, but recently our water turned brown and I realized how water-dependent we are.

Went out and bought two "life straws." We have enough food to last a month without infrastructure just by virtue of large pantries, but when the water goes out, it's gone.

My wife laughed at me, but from my perspective, if infrastructure is down for more than a month, I'm probably toast anyway. ;)

<comment><USER6> I own a small electric water distiller for such circumstances, although drinking pure water is not supposed to be good, either (needs some minerals or it will leach them out of your system I was told, could be false).

<comment><USER7> Distilling water takes tremendous amounts of energy.

Filtering with bacterial (or if necessary, viral) grade filters, and additional chemical treatment (chlorine or iodine) is vastly more efficient.

A backpack filter does double-duty (have a few spare filters and can treat a litre or so of water in a couple of minutes without too much effort. Larger filters can be used (foot-pumped) for larger quantities.

Keep in mind that if the water's out, power may well be too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Years ago when I was growing up in the woods of West Virginia we had a particularly bad blizzard. During this time the power went out.

We were use to this happening and most of the time it was for half a day or so. So we pulled out the kerosene heaters and the oil lamps for light. Bundled up and waiting.

We ended up being snowed in without power for two weeks. My mom and dad would take turns bundling up and walking a mile or so every few days to get to the roads to get more fuel.

One thing I remember clearly was cooking on out outside wood fire grill, which was essentially cinder blocks and a grate. No worry about running out of wood since there was always plenty around.

I remember the whole ordeal pretty fondly. As a kid it was a good change of pace and like camping.

<comment><USER9> I did something similar as a kid, but not on accident. Parents would take us for 1-2 weeks to a cabin with kerosene lamps no electricity, no running water. It was usually ok, but there was one trip where it rained nonstop for the week. I cannot forget that boredom, you can only play cards and read for so long before you start to lose it.

I suppose our pre-electricity ancestors had deeper social lives with the people around them, and a stronger connection with the outdoors, but for those who lived in climates that required frequent shelter holy cow they must have been bored out of their skulls.

<comment><USER10> Did your parents do everything for you?

Foraging and collecting water, making fires (chopping the wood with hand tools), cleaning, preparing and cooking food, ... you've used most of the day; couple of hours of reading. Rinse and repeat.

Even camping when you have gas and water on tap, it's surprising how much of the day is meal-prep, and cleaning (pots, tools, self).

When you needed to hunt, make clothing, maintain tools just with basic tech then I Can't see there being so much time to be bored.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Years back I was introduced to a terrific BBC show called _Connections_ with James Burke (1978). The first episode, available on YouTube [0], is all about the world's reliance on power and that within a short period of time we'd be catapulted back to the plow.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ)

<comment><USER12> There's a great book, _The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch_ , talking about how to recover from an apocalypse where most people die. They recommend as a first step going out to the nearest golf course to grab the batteries in the golf carts because those are things you'll really need and won't be able to re-make for a while.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18114087-the- knowledge](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18114087-the-knowledge)

<comment><USER13> I've been doing some thinking along these lines and I always end up with the realization that if most infrastructure around you is down, there isn't that much you can _do_ with electrical power in the amounts that could be available.

I mean, you can get light when it's dark, and possibly run a refrigerator from a solar installation, but otherwise what would you use the electricity for? Not for heating, not for transportation (not enough of it), your cell phones and other computer devices won't be of much use without the network anyway. Perhaps if you have portable radios you could charge them, but otherwise — what?

My conclusion was that we've become alarmingly dependent on infrastructure. I decided to get some maps, old-style paper books, and started considering getting radios and tiny solar panels to re-charge them.

<comment><USER14> Same things we do now. Lighting, yes. Communication. Power tools. Pumps. Winches. Automation. GPS should last a good while too.

<comment><USER15> A lot of those heavier duty things you mention require three phase power, which is very difficult and expensive to handle independently without the grid to support you.

<comment><USER14> Do they really require it? Or do they just currently use it _because_ it's convenient with the grid? In an off-grid scenario, you probably wouldn't use AC power for anything. DC motors will serve perfectly well for the "heavy duty" applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've done some research into the serval mesh project and Briar and similar; I do wish most cell phones had some mesh networking installed by default. Something to enable granny to send a text message to me via piggybacking off other people who happen to be near enough to have P2P communication.

This would have to be a protocol designed for offline-tolerance I suppose, so something like auto-exchanging private keys while the network is good and/or in person if network is down for message security, then when in no signal mode, regularly transmit and receive small messages encrypted with the same key-pairs as the real ones, then if they can decrypt the short test message (short enough to be easy to try / won't eat too much battery life), establish a dedicated connection long enough to transmit full messages back and forth before disconnecting.

IDK. Probably serval mesh, briar, gnutella or similar already have this figured out. I'd like it to be end-user easy for us to prep for that though so if we are in a venue like a theme park or stadium our phones can transparently be P2P over Blue-Fi-Drop

<comment><USER17> Have you heard about the GoTenna mesh project, [https://gotennamesh.com/](https://gotennamesh.com/) ? I haven't got one yet, but it looks like the sort of thing you're describing (though its a device that works with existing smartphones, rather than being a protocol our phones could run. An advantage here is that with sufficient GoTenna mesh users in an area, one's anonymity could be increased, as typically (at least in the USA and most of western Europe) one can't buy SIM cards to access telephone networks without one's ID.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This was part of the 2003 North East Blackout

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003)

>The blackout's primary cause was a software bug in the alarm system at the control room of FirstEnergy, an Akron, Ohio–based company, which rendered operators unaware of the need to redistribute load after overloaded transmission lines drooped into foliage. What should have been a manageable local blackout cascaded into collapse of the entire Northeast region.

<comment><USER19> My boss claims he is responsible for this blackout due to an errant tibco message. I can never tell if he is kidding or not, but he has a lot of experience in the power industry so I have no reason to doubt this.

<comment><USER16> If you dare reveal your HN activity and ask him to comment, I'd love to read his first-hand account.

<comment><USER19> I asked and either because of fear of prosecution or modesty or hyperbole he said its just a bar story...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The problem facing service station operators is that they can't charge a premium for gas when the power fails, to offset the cost of installing generators. It's seen as "gouging". So there is no incentive to prepare.

The meager profit margins on gas sales are not enough.

<comment><USER21> > _they can 't charge a premium for gas when the power fails_

We had gasoline shortages a few years ago in New York. I can't find the article now, but a newspaper– _The Economist_ , I believe–noted how supply disruptions for illicit drugs were virtually nonexistent because a small price bump compensated for maintaining inventory. Meanwhile, "price gouging" laws virtually ensured lines at the petrol stations.

<comment><USER22> >Meanwhile, "price gouging" laws virtually ensured lines at the petrol stations.

Or maybe it was limited supply... Demand for gas seems fairly inelastic.

<comment><USER23> I believe this to be false. If the price for gas went to $30/gal in a city in the US there would be tanker trucks, boats, and hotshots with tanks in the bed lining up to get into town. Alternative means of transporting the gas into a disaster area would become economical if the price increases enough. The shortage is created by restricting the free market price.

<comment><USER7> In numerous parts of the country, there is limited cross-transfer capacity (pipelines, etc.), and worse, formulation requirements and regulations which make fuel for one region unacceptable in others.

Because of flammability, petrol itself is generally _not_ hauled long distances, but is instead refined locally and trucked to service stations. There are some petrol pipelines and marine transports, but those tend to be more problematic than unrefined crude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Having lived and experienced the aforementioned blackout (> 55 million people, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003) )

It was a transformative experience to me and it felt everyone else who experienced it regarding the hidden importance of these infrastructure pieces.

What I loved about this piece is it reads much like so many people's experiences of the incident. Even though it happened over 15 years ago, I and most others remember distinctly and with clarity the sequence of events that occurred on that day. Seems like most people's stories went somewhere along the lines of:

\- Interruption of an intended activity due to no electricity

\- Attempt at understanding scope, and an effort to substitute the interrupted activity (in my experience, we were entering a restaurant for food and was told "given we don't have power, we can't microwave most of our items - <USER2> the oil in our friers are still a bit hot though so you can have fries... We wanted to try elsewhere).

\- The realization that this was not a localized one block situation, but something larger and more serious. (We drove around and the traffic lights were out, put on the radio (most most stations were "silent"). The few that were didn't even know what was going on "it appears there is a blackout, getting reports from as far as <X>" with <X> being of an increasing scope as the hour went on.

\- Then an abandonment of the days plans for a trip "back to shelter/home" where one nestled and tried to wait it out until services were re-restored.

The natural gas in our home didn't work either, so the only way we could heat food was on a fire. It's one thing to realize that all these these are connected, but its another to feel its connectedness through these services' absence.

<comment><USER25> I was in high school at the time (in Toronto), working at a technology camp for kids— the blackout hit late afternoon when our day was mostly wrapped up, so I took the bus home as usual.

My experience into the evening was totally different from yours though. People in my parents' neighbourhood sat out on each other's front porches, barbecuing, eating ice cream before it all melted, hanging out. It was a pretty unique moment of community, almost like an impromptu street party that went on for blocks and blocks. It was kind of liberating, I think, in a reverse paradox of choice kind of way, to suddenly not be able to do a whole bunch of things, and to be forced to just kill time away from the TV (and probably outside, as the reality of not having A/C descended).

Anyway, I don't think I'm unique in this recollection: [https://www.google.com/search?q=2003+blackout+party](https://www.google.com/search?q=2003+blackout+party)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> In a disaster, public transit is one of the first utilities to go. A fun exercise is "could I walk home from here?" If not, and you spend a lot of time there, you need to stage an emergency kit there at least as much as you need one at home.

I wouldn't count on BART service anytime soon after The Big One. (Not that I'd count on freeways either. A bike seems like your best bet).

You find dependencies on electricity in surprising places. Good luck getting water out of an automatic faucet or push button water fountain. Good luck getting your car out of a stacker system - even if it's already at ground level, those doors don't have manual releases. Good luck getting through any badge reader doors in your office or apartment complex. (This may rule out the bike, even if you brought one).

<comment><USER27> >Good luck getting water out of an automatic faucet or push button water fountain.

Yikes! I hadn't realized that. I always praised plumbing as a good example of a well-designed, robust system that works even when the power is out, and how only the naive, self-styled 10xers would break that to be trendy ... and yet, they did it already.

Hopefully the auto-flushing toilets don't have this problem?

<comment><USER28> They do, automatic = electric. If you're not applying force from your muscles to move something, that force is being applied by electricity.

<comment><USER29> To be fair, if you pour a bucket of water down a toilet fast enough it will "flush" regardless.

<comment><USER30> Or just put water into the tank.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This was well written. Sounds like he had less than 24 hours without power but turned the story into a doomsday journal entry.

His note about cell phone towers losing power was scary. Never really thought about that. I usually assume the phones will keep working as long as we can charge them, but I suppose the towers need some juice too.

In our small city, one power line blew down last week and 1/4 of the city was without power for about 6 hours.

I'm baffled at the lack of redundancy.

I have more redundancy behind my customers' blogs about their dogs than it appears our city has for keeping electricity flowing to 10K people.

Life without power will be hard to survive. And I fear my neighbors much more than my food spoiling.

<comment><USER32> _I usually assume the phones will keep working as long as we can charge them, but I suppose the towers need some juice too._

It was interesting to observe when the power went out in Redmond, WA for two weeks about ten years ago. Towers stayed online for a while, until some (I'm guessing) lost their batteries. Still had a little signal, though, because (again, guessing) some towers had generators. Then the diesel ran out (again, guessing), and we had no cell signal after a few days.

That's why I keep the amateur radio skills practiced.

<comment><USER13> I consider the communications infrastructure to be extremely fragile and prone to collapse. It already collapses under load easily, and while it can make through a short blackout, a solar storm/flare would take it out for a long time.

Yes, amateur radio makes a lot of sense.

<comment><USER33> Starlink could solve the loss of power problem, but a really big solar flare could take that out too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> After hurricane Maria in September 2017 the entire island of Puerto Rico was without power. There was nowhere you could drive out of the blackout area since it was everywhere.

A few luckier people got power back in one to two weeks, a small minority. My family in the greater metro area of San Juan got power back after two months. Friends in smaller cities only got power after three to five months. There are communities in the mountains which still don't have power today, almost two years later.

If you haven't lived through anything like this, it is a useful mental exercise to think how you'd prepare for it.

<comment><USER35> Do you know any write-ups of personal stories from this on the web? Something like the blog post in this hacker news post.

<comment><USER34> There is so much, but difficult to find any one link to summarize..

After a bit of searching found this page which is a similar blog-style page except has snippets from many different people. In Spanish.

[https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/09/209947/huracan- mari...](https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/09/209947/huracan-maria- aniversario-puerto-rico-experiencia-mujeres)

For English language coverage, search for videos by David Begnaud of CBS News who was on site and provided excellent reporting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Having solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and electric cars could make society quite a lot more resilient to these kind of things.

<comment><USER37> Or if you're rural, an external combustion engine of some sort, so you can keep the lights on with firewood.

<comment><USER38> You must mean steam engine.

<comment><USER39> Sterling engine, peltier chip...

You can find peltier chip phone chargers that work by being placed in or near a campfire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> _One thing that I was very impressed with was how well the cellphone network dealt with the outage, for at least 24 hours all the base stations worked, after that point they slowly dropped out one by one as their batteries ran dry._

As decedents of an industry that was paranoid enough to generate power for their own equipment, its nice to see some of the cell phone companies take power seriously. It would be nicer if they could last a bit longer.

<comment><USER41> They do have emergency base stations mounted on vans with diesel generators, these can run indefinitely.

<comment><USER42> As long as they have diesel.

<comment><USER43> Diesel is pretty easy to get. Even in a power outage you can open the stations reservoirs and pump it out manually the main issue is getting the station to agree to it, makes sense for a single big customer but not to do it for everyone looking to gas up their car.

<comment><USER42> Only if the depots have gravity drops, if their pumps are electric and the reservoirs underground then you're not going to be able to pump it out to the surface.

Fortunately most depots are aboveground and only need a tap to be opened to drop their fuel into a truck.

A person looking up their car would not even be allowed on the grounds. Besides that the volume dispensed is way too high to deal with in a normal vehicle, you're looking at 1000's of liters / minute.

<comment><USER43> No I'm talking about at the individual stations. There are hand or battery operated pumps that could easily fuel trucks for refueling places like cell towers or other critical places with generators.

<comment><USER42> Ah I see what you are getting at, you'd use the drop ports to pump fuel out. That works as long as they are not buried too deep, and no gas station owner would let you submerge a pump to push up.

A typical station has anywhere from 50K to 1M liters of underground capacity so that should be enough for a bit, if their own pumps aren't running then they will likely be happy to be able to sell some of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Having an RV set up for remote work where we can leave home for days, weeks, or months has actually prepared me for outages better than most. The entirety of the RV can run on propane and battery, and I have both solar and generators to recharge the battery bank. Depending on the season, the propane I have on hand can last from 14 days to upwards of months while the generator gas I have on hand can handle about a week of full-time running. Because of where I like to visit, I also carry two cellular hotspots and a satellite internet option and can typically get internet access where others can't.

A few years back, prior to owning the RV, we had a windstorm come through about ten days before Thanksgiving. Power to most of the area was knocked out as the weaker trees fell and wiped out much of the powerline infrastructure (I recorded gusts around 75 mph before my weather station actually broke). As is normal that time of year, temperatures were in the 20ºF range, which meant finding alternate heating methods at the very least. We were very underprepared for it, losing much of the food in the fridge/freezer, and the house got very cold.

All local generators and gas cans sold out very, very quickly, but I found one on Amazon that could be shipped to my door overnight for $50 extra. It arrived on the second day (of seven) of the outage, and I wired the furnace, fridge, and one multipurpose outlet into it. We struggled with just the one 5 gallon gas can, though, needing a daily trip to the gas station to refill. Had they not had power, it would've been worse.

In the end, it was much like camping without adequate preparation. The first couple days were novel and amusing, but by the end, it was just a daily routine of ensuring we stayed warm enough and no damage was done (e.g., pipes freezing).

</comment><comment><USER45> Nice to read an article from somebody local, or nearly so, to me.

I remember the outage well, I worked at a major telecommunications company with reserve generators. I really didn't appreciate the depth of the issue until I drove home that night. People were telling other people, total strangers, that nukes were dropping all over the US. You can imagine the panic.

Word eventually spread and the northern mindset of looking after your neighbours took hold, as mentioned in the artice.

I went to use the BBQ to make some burgers. We ran out of propane naturally. My neighbour offered his BBQ which coincidentally, was out of propane. Then HIS neighbour offered his BBQ. He was out building a deck when the power went out. He fired up his generator and continued on. His skil-saw was the only sound to be heard. All the neighbours threw in food and drink and we got to know one another.

I will admit to being a little said after the power was restored, because, except for a nod or a wave, we went back to the business of minding our own.

</comment><comment><USER46> Infrastructure is a concern. But to me the bigger concern is the food supply. It, like gasoline, runs lean; very just in time.

Look at what the possibility of a snow storm does to the supermarket. Now imagine the effect on the public psyche when they're told "we'll have more food next week."

</comment><comment><USER47> There is a moral to that story.

Making sure we have enough energy for everything we want whether the source is coal, oil, nuclear or hydro because energy is the single biggest contributor to a better life, richer and safer life and the more access we have the better of we are.

</comment><comment><USER48> This last winter on an incredibly cold night(<-10 F) we had a power outage in the middle of the night. I was up late and noticed it right away. After I reported it to the utility, I made sure the dog was on the bed with me, closed the bedroom doors, and hunkered down. I'm not sure what time it came on but when I woke up the thermostat was showing it had dropped more than 15 degrees F in the house. I should probably buy a generator.

<comment><USER49> Or just put a tent up in the living room.

<comment><USER7> Tents insulate poorly.

A 1 litre Nalgene bottle, filled with boiling water, and slipped in a wool sock, on the other hand, will keep you warm. Two is generally overly toasty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I really take for granted how great electricity is. I didn't have power for a week during the big Sandy storm and it's funny how I instinctly turn the lights on every time I go into a room. It's scary to think what it would be like if we didn't perpetually have electricity.

</comment><comment><USER51> There was a TV series about a scenario where electricity simply stopped working: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_(TV_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_\(TV_series\))

<comment><USER52> My partner and I loved watching this show!! (We saw it over one of the streaming service, not live tv.) Too bad they stopped at 2 seasons.

But, thanks for sharing the wikipedia link, because now i see that there's a comic book series which wraps up the story. Cheers!

<comment><USER51> I didn't pay attention myself, so thanks for mentioning about the comics - <USER3> didn't know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Most people are too blase about having decentralized backup systems, in every area.

We need decentralized power generation and storage (solar panel based, etc.) to survive a Carrington Event or an EMP. Or just a simple blackout. We need electric cars which represent choice rather than fossil-fuel lockin.

But we also need mesh networks and software to run on them, to survive the Internet being cut off like in Kashmir or Hong Kong. We need decentralized town currencies and much more.

Please watch this talk I gave a few years ago:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzMm7-j7yIY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzMm7-j7yIY)

<comment><USER43> How will rooftop solar help with a massive solar storm or EMP. Most inverters actually cannot provide 50/60hz AC on their own and just sync to an external source. Even beyond that issue they'd all be fried anyways in the same even that killed the regular electrical grid.

<comment><USER53> Solar storm only affects really long wires, not short circuits around the house and a battery.

[https://www.cnet.com/news/we-arent-ready-for-a-solar- storm-s...](https://www.cnet.com/news/we-arent-ready-for-a-solar-storm- smackdown/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Back when the "Y2K Bug" was emerging as a serious threat, I described to my ex-engineer father the looming issue in great detail. He listened carefully, then calmly replied "if that happens, I'll throw another log on the fire and go back to my book." Indeed, he was living preparedness: there was no "crazy prepper" stuff, just someone who had systematically thought through everything that could go wrong, and who had seamlessly integrated backup systems into his lifestyle.

I aspire to do the same, making slow progress. Too few know how close to disaster their lifestyle is.

<comment><USER33> I had a cabin up northern ontario that you had to canoe and portage to get to, no power, no running water, outhouse. Invited friends up.

What was interesting while some would come up, others claimed they could not live without a hot water bath, or electric lighting, and while my outhouse had seven (yes seven) coats of white paint and the hole was so deep I had problems getting out when I first dug it - the idea of not using a flush toilet was alien to them.

Some people are not ready for how basic things can get without power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wish it wasn't so expensive to have a switch next to your circuit-breaker that was labelled 'electric lines/natural gas/water' and depending on which selection would cut-off the home electricity from the others and enable the electricity to come from, respectively, the central grid, a small natural-gas- fed generator (with auto-start battery?), a pico/micro hydro generator in the basement/crawlspace.

Having the ability to convert your electricity bill to a more expensive water/natural gas bill and still have power during an outage would be quite nice.

<comment><USER55> The natural gas genny portion exists, the water one does not. The water one doesn't exist for two reasons:

1\. There is only energy in the water system because your city has pumps/water towers to give it pressure. So in a disaster, you running your hydro setup is just placing more strain on the water infra who are likely running on generators.

2\. Hydro plants need _huge_ amounts of water to provide power. To even power a single outlet, you are talking in the range of tens of thousands of gallons of water per hour. Your water bill would _quickly_ eclipse the cost of just buying a generator.

\---

Going back to natural gas, you are looking for an automatic transfer switch. When the power cuts, it disconnects you from the grid, turns on the generator automatically, and you then have power again. When the power is back, it switches you back to grid and turns generator off. Only downside is that there will be a several second power cut while generator turns on. You generally can only get this feature on midrange cost and up generators. For cost savings measures, you can also buy a manual transfer switch, with the obvious downside of you having to flip the switch and go start the genny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> _" The honda was a veritable bomb, it was filled with cannisters as many as they could cram in."_

Somehow that one sentence shivered me as I imagined a crowd of happy people surrounding a car with bottomed out suspension.

</comment><comment><USER57> @dang do you mind adding (2013) to the title?

</comment><comment><USER58> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4995938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4995938)

</comment><comment><USER59> There is probably a moral to this story: We are too much dependent on centralized systems because of perceived efficiency, but how true is that anymore? How hard is it to be i.e. energetically autonomous though? In sunny places, a house could probably be affordably autonomous, however these solutions have not been explored at scale and are not cheap yet. (I already know it's possible to have food-autarky, a garden and a few chicken will do).

<comment><USER38> We can't support 7 billion people if each one of them has a house with garden and grows it's own food. That's what the middle ages were, look at the population then.

<comment><USER60> The truth is probably somewhere between the two of you. We shouldn't be entirely dependant on centralized systems, nor should we attempt to be 100% self-sufficient. I'm sure there's a best of both worlds approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I guess this is a good a time as any to ping Jacques about getting the photos back on his windmill build page. Still one of my favourite build logs...

<comment><USER42> On the todo list. When I shut down Camarades.com/WW.com I took the photo archive offline as well, but did not realize my blog pics where hotlinked from it. Now I need to go digging around on some ancient backup server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Check out 'World Without Us' by John Wiesman. A fascinating thought experiment wherein we all suddenly 'beam up' and Earth left to go on evolving.

</comment><comment><USER62> Keep in mind that in 2003 China still hadn't figured out how to make small engines with good (enough for western consumers) quality control so everyone and their brother did not have a backup generator. These days things are very different. Many businesses (especially ones that depend on refrigeration) have backup generators now.

<comment><USER31> But most generators need fuel. It's only a temporary fix.

It's funny how a generator creates peace of mind, and yet we don't consider the magnitude of the disaster for which they give us peace.

<comment><USER63> A gas generator can only run on gasoline, which is a complex fuel that can't be produced without a highly specialized industrial infrastructure But.... a moderately modified diesel generator can run on pure filtered vegetable oil, and that's something that any small homestead with a modest amount of planning and equipment can make, for as long as they have oil-bearing plants at their disposal.

<comment><USER64> It's not actually that complicated. Anyone can distill ethanol with 12th century technology, all you need is a source of sugar, such as corn, fruits, etc, yeast, and a heat source. If you're getting fancy you can use enzymes but it's not necessary. The only downside is that the yield is low, and modern engines don't run very well on pure ethanol without modification.

<comment><USER63> Okay, this is true and definitely useful as one more option in a so called STHF scenario but ethanol still provides more complications for use and conversion in modern gas engines (especially if you include newer fuel injected motors in cars).Furthermore and much more importantly, biodiesel (slightly different from the SVO of my original comment but close enough)produces about 90%+ more energy than is needed for its production, while ethanol only manages about 25% or so based on data I've seen. That's a major bonus for biosiesel and SVO generators or vehicle engines because in a real catastrophe situation, you'd want the most fuel energy for the least production inputs. Also, modified diesel engines that run biodiesel can also run straight vegetable oil and even animal fats, making them more versatile and easier to maintain than an ethanol motor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> reminds me of the movie Into the Forest [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/into_the_forest](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/into_the_forest)</comment>


What are your favorite programming-related academic papers? - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/358033/what-are-your-favorite-programming-related-academic-papers <comment><USER2> Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? A Functional Style and Its Algebra of Programs

John Backus

IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose

Communications of the ACM, Volume 21, Number 8, August 1978

<http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs242/readings/backus.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER3> Red-Black Trees in a Functional Setting

Chris Okasaki

<http://www.eecs.usma.edu/webs/people/okasaki/jfp99.ps>

It shows how to construct Red-Black trees in an extremely simple manner in Haskell. I tried this technique in C++ and I was finished within an hour!

</comment><comment><USER4> On the Criteria To Be Used in Decomposing Systems into Modules

D.L. Parnas

Carnegie-Mellon University

Communications of the ACM, Vol. 15, No. 12, December 1972

<http://sunnyday.mit.edu/16.355/parnas-criteria.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> "Optimistic replication" (PDF), Yasushi Saito and Marc Shapiro, ACM Computing Surveys, Mar 2005.

<http://www.ysaito.com/survey.pdf>

Fantastic paper, a really good overview of all things sync and replication - vector clocks, matrix clocks, you name it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Systems Software Research is Irrelevant (aka utah2000 or utah2k)

By Rob Pike - August 05th 2000, 23:59 EST

<http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/></comment>


Creative usernames and Spotify account hijacking - <AUTHOR> http://labs.spotify.com/2013/06/18/creative-usernames <comment><USER2> This seems odd. I mean, if their code was properly __modular __, they would have just one place where they "fetchUserIdByName(userName)", which returns one user ID or null if it's not used yet.

When a new user is created, it then gets assigned a unique user ID. The email address is assigned to that user ID.

Then, if they do a password reset on user = "bigbird", it should do the exact same lookup to find the email address.

The security bug was not really about having an improper function to do unicode translation. It was more about having __different functions for the same check __, simply because they were in different parts of the code.

Modular code is just so much better on all fronts, including security.

<comment><USER3> Based on their description of the bug, it sounded like the code was modular, but they called the function twice: once when the password reset request was generated, and again when the link in the email was clicked.

      However, when the link was used, canonical_username was once again applied

So after they sent the password reset link, they called "fetchUserIdByName" again, but they passed in a username that had already been canonicalized once. Because of this bug, I wonder if password resets worked at all for users with unicode characters in their names.

<comment><USER4> If you're saying canonicalise(canonicalise(name)) is not the same as canonicalise(name), that's going to be seriously bug-prone. Idempotence ftw.

<comment><USER5> That's exactly what they describe as the cause of the bug. They intended for the function to be idempotent but it wasn't because of a misunderstanding with the Python library spec.

<comment><USER6> Worse, it /did/ work that way in Python 2.4 but Python 2.5 stopped throwing an exception for invalid codepoints which broke the Twisted library which broke their canonicalization function.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think they could have handled the 'reward' a bit better :P

"In this case the two users who posted to the forum where actually rewarded with some Spotify premium months."

I'd say: Premium lifetime memberships would be better :)

<comment><USER8> Yeah, seeing as before they had the option to log into anyones account, affectivly the same as a lifetime membership.

</comment></comment><comment> a-nikolaev I don't see any real reason to rely on idempotence.

They could simply store two names: One is provided by the user (verbatim), and the second is its reduction to lowercase letters and digits (canonical). For all internal logic, they could use only the canonical name, and use the verbatim name in the front-end to make the user happy.

 _> Lower casing has the key property of being idempotent, i.e., that applying it more than once has no effect: x.lower() == x.lower().lower(). So if a username gets passed from service to service and you want to make sure it is in canonical form you can safely apply .lower() and if it was already in canonical form there is no harm done, and it is easy to stay safe._

Apparently, they thought that it's ok to use verbatim and canonical names interchangeably, relying on idenpotence property of the XMPP function.

It looks like a huge design error.

<comment><USER9> >They could simply store two names

Presumably you mean in the database? I don't see a reason to keep a copy of the lower() transformation of a string when it is incredibly cheap to transform a small string to lowercase.

What exactly is the point of that? I would just call lower() as needed, personally.

<comment> a-nikolaev Oh, my point was that two kinds of names should not be used interchangeably. To store or not the .lower() is a matter of taste.. (Personally, I would store both names, just to avoid wasting computing time)

<comment><USER9> I think the act of storing both names is bad, because you multiply the amount of data that could possibly become wrong by 2.

With lower(), we can expect we'll get the right transformation of string A each time. If instead, we store string A, and then store string B as A.lower() and copy it... A.lower() will always be A.lower, but it's much easier for someone to come along, screw with the database, and change B.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure how they can avoid storing both.

They need to store the verbatim username in order to know how to display the username in the UI.

They need to store the canonical username in order to efficiently know whether a given canonical username is in use.

<comment><USER11> Not necessarily, in PostgreSQL you could simply add a canonicalised index.

<comment><USER10> Well, in that case you're still storing it, you're just letting the the db store it for you.

But - when the issue here is the question of the reliability of the implementation of the canonicalisation function, having it done once in python, and then again by PG is going to be a huge issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very interesting post -- dealing with unicode gets tricky. Because dealing with a full character repertoire is tricky, not because unicode does it poorly (unicode actually does it well).

I wonder if Unicode UTR#30 would be an alternative (more reliable?) method of idempotent normalization? [http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr30/tr30-4.html](http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr30/tr30-4.html)

Or maybe the twisted algorithm really is UTR#30, just not labelled that?

As far as I can tell, UTR#30 did not make it to formally being part of the unicode spec, for reasons I'm not entirely clear on -- it is nonetheless quite useful, and this case is an example. Solr for instance still uses it. ([http://wiki.apache.org/solr/AnalyzersTokenizersTokenFilters#...](http://wiki.apache.org/solr/AnalyzersTokenizersTokenFilters#solr.ICUFoldingFilterFactory)).

It might be a pain to find code implementing UTR#30 in your language of choice though (I am not sure if it's part of current ICU libraries or not).

It's also worth pointing out, that in addition to this kind of 'folding' of different-but-look-the-same graphemes, in this sort of use case you ABSOLUTELY need to do byte normalization as per UAX#15 [http://unicode.org/reports/tr15/](http://unicode.org/reports/tr15/) . Probably NFKC for this sort of use case.

<comment><USER12> Huh, and another alternative would be using one of the unicode collation algorithms for normalization -- which, unlike UAX#15, did make it beyond draft stage to be an official part of the unicode spec.

[http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr30/tr30-4.html#_Toc23](http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr30/tr30-4.html#_Toc23)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _So if a username gets passed from service to service and you want to make sure it is in canonical form you can safely apply .lower() and if it was already in canonical form there is no harm done, and it is easy to stay safe._

Why?

Suppose you only pass the original name around instead. Then you don't _require_ your canonicalization function to be idempotent, which might be good in your case since it wasn't.

<comment><USER14> Because they wanted "BigBird" to be the same as "bigbird" or "BIGBIRD". Hence if you wanted to rely on a userId, you would still need to ensure all the variations of BiGbirD map to the same userId.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why does Unicode threat Omega and Ohm like different characters?

<comment><USER16> Wikipedia's article on Ohm actually covers this!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm#Ohm_symbol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm#Ohm_symbol)

"Unicode encodes the symbol as U+2126 Ω ohm sign, distinct from Greek omega among letterlike symbols, but it is only included for backwards compatibility and the Greek uppercase omega character U+03A9 Ω greek capital letter omega (HTML: Ω Ω) is preferred."

And from the Unicode Standards doc that is the source for that section:

"Greek Letters as Symbols: The use of Greek letters for mathematical variables and operators is well established. Characters from the Greek block may be used for these symbols.

For compatibility purposes, a few Greek letters are separately encoded as symbols in other character blocks. Examples include U+00B5 µ n the Latin-1 Supplement character block and U+2126 Ω in the Letterlike Symbols character block. The ohm sign is canonically equivalent to the capital omega, and normalization would remove any distinction. Its use is therefore discouraged in favor of capital omega. The same equivalence does not exist between micro sign and mu, and use of either character as micro sign is common; for Greek text, only the mu should be used."

<comment><USER17> Is there a separate symbol for A?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nothing new at all, even my stockbroker had similar kind of bug. There should be only one function which handles usernames. When same thing is implemented differently all over the source, this is exactly what happens.

I have seen also much worse solutions. Where actually giving username, logs you in (sets logged in session cookie) and then prompts for password. When you enter invalid password you're logged out. If you give username, and then change url, you're in. Business as usual. When you test it, it works. Username + right password = ok, Username + wrong password != ok. Tests passed, and that's it.

</comment><comment><USER19> A similar issue exists with international domain names.

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

<comment><USER20> it's a different problem, though to some degree they stem from the same underlying issue (similar but different characters).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd like to point out that even though not every website accepts unicode characters on registration, some software such as vBulletin let the administrator/user to replace the username with such characters once the user is signed up.

You may not create as much havoc as in the original post, but some level of confusion at least.

</comment><comment><USER22> Why not to make canonization while the names differ?

canName=canonical_username(name); for(canName1=canName,i=0;canName1!=canName;i++){ canName1=canonical_username(canName); if(i>=treshold){ stop_registration(); break; } }

</comment><comment><USER23> We require an email address as a user name. Does this get around the problem?

<comment><USER24> Depends on how you validate an email address.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > it is probably good to... treat "BigBird" and "bigbird" as the same > username.

Erm...

<comment><USER20> How about "building" and "buiIding"? or "nodata" and "nodata"? You probably don't want people running around claiming to be admins because their name _looks_ the same.

Similarly, do you really want to do tech support when someone forgets that their username is "nodata" instead of "Nodata", since their phone auto- capitalized things when they signed up? It happens. And how do you know they're "Nodata" and not "nOdata" or "nOdAtA"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> A fascinating account.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm confused about why they even had the need for canonicalising the usernames for whatever purpose? Why couldn't they just have stored and used them just as they are?

<comment><USER28> If they did as you suggest, the specific account-stealing flaw they had wouldn't happen, but since many unicode points have very similar glyphs, there would still be "copycat" accounts. That is, the strings "Oscar" and "Οscar" appear very similar (if one has the proper fonts installed), and one user could therefore pose as another.

It's true that many sites don't care about this, but I don't fault Spotify for trying to prevent it.

<comment><USER27> It looks to me as if the prevention of this caused more problems than it solved.

<comment><USER29> Not even close.

The letter À (A grave) can be written as the UTF-8 bytestream 0xC3 0x80 (i.e. a single "character"), or as À - i.e. a letter A, then a combining grave character i.e. 0x41 0xCC 0x80.

The two are identical. Except they have different byte representations. If you don't normalize your unicode you will run into major problems.

<comment><USER12> There are actually two kinds of normalization in play here.

The one you are talking about is the one unicode actually calls normalization, and is dealt with in UTR#15. [http://unicode.org/reports/tr15/](http://unicode.org/reports/tr15/)

You are absolutely right that, in almost any situation taking unicode input where you're ever going to need to compare strings (and in most where you're ever going to need to display them), you are going to need to apply one of the UTR#15 normalization forms. UTR#15 normalizes different byte representations of what, in ALL circumstances are indeed identical characters/graphemes. A lot of people don't take account of this.

Then there's the kind of canonicalization that OP talks about, which Unicode actually calls 'folding', and is about characters/graphemes which really ARE different characters but which, for _some_ but not all contexts may be treated as 'equivalent' (if not neccesarily identical). The simplest example is case insensitivity, but there are other trickier ones in the complete repertoire, like those discussed in the OP.

This second kind of 'folding' canonicalization is a lot trickier, because it is contextual, not absolute. Which is maybe why Unicode started out trying to make an algorithm for it in UTR#30 but then abandoned it. Nonetheless, despite it's trickiness and contextuality, you often still really do need to do it, as in OP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So is there a need for a TRULY idempotent equivalent of XMPP's nodeprep? Or one that handles more Unicode points? Or is it a calculated decision to support Unicode 3.2 points only? (Sorry for the nooby questions, but this was very interesting and I don't know a lot about Unicode)

<comment><USER31> The decision to only support Unicode 3.2 is simply because the StringPrep framework [1] (which XMPP's nodeprep and various other protocols use) is forever tied to that version of Unicode.

Current work is on the PRECIS framework [2] which uses the metadata for Unicode code points to determine how to handle them during canonicalization instead of relying on a hard coded set of mapping tables. There's still a lot of work to be done, mainly to review that the process works reliably and doesn't introduce subtle new issues. Peter Saint-Andre (one of the authors of PRECIS) has just started on a Python tool for testing how a given version of Unicode is handled by PRECIS ([https://github.com/stpeter/PrecisMaker](https://github.com/stpeter/PrecisMaker)).

[1] [https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3454.txt](https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3454.txt)

[2] [https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-precis- framework-08](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-precis-framework-08)

<comment><USER30> Great information, even cooler to see someone's got some code working alongside it, I might have to adapt it to Go if it's fairly reasonable to understand given my relative lack of experience with Unicode (heh as I'd mentioned and is probably obvious given your knowledge on hand).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Reminds me of the early GMail bug, where you could sign up with "john.smith", "jo.hn.smi.th" or "johnsmith", but all mail was delivered to the period-less version:

[http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/01/6022-2/](http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/01/6022-2/)

<comment><USER33> The link agrees - it's a feature not a bug and one that considered security:

> As it turns out, even though Gmail will act as if there is no period in a > username when delivering mail, it will not permit users to register accounts > whose only difference to other account is a period. That is, if bob.jones is > registered, bobjones cannot get an account (he could get bobjones2, > obviously).</comment></comment>


A letter to today's young people - <AUTHOR> https://marco.org/2016/11/11/letter-to-young-people <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934034](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12934034)</comment>


Cora – Kitty Hawk's prototype air taxi [video] - <AUTHOR> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LeFxjRMv5U8 <comment><USER3> Another discussion on KittyHawk here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16573676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16573676)

</comment><comment><USER4> Contrary to almost every comment here so far, this is both innovative and energy efficient.

Let's talk energy efficiency first. Once it's up in the air, it's has a similar profile to a normal single engine airplane. A Cirrus SR22 can go 1,200 miles on 80 gallons of gas. That's roughly speaking 15 miles per gallon - better than many pickup trucks or large SUVs. And that's while going 180 mph. Slower is more fuel efficient.

This aircraft is definitely going to make noise on takeoff and landing, but it's not going to make much noise while cruising.

The Dodecacopter/regular aircraft hybrid solves a lot of problems. Once it is in cruise mode, it is as safe as a regular small aircraft. Importantly, unlike a quadcopter, it does not crash immediately on loss of engine power - it can glide to a landing somewhere, or use a parachute, or land with its Dodecacopter rotors.

Unlike a rotor craft, this aircraft is very energy efficient while cruising.

The Dodecacopter side lets it take off and land in even more places than a helicopter. It looks like it has redundancy for any two rotors/motors to go out. If this happens on takeoff, you fly to an airport to land. If this happens on landing, you leave the aircraft on the ground until someone comes and fixes you. You skip all the transmission and cyclic complexity of a helicopter. This is going to cost a whole lot less to maintain than a helicopter.

In short, this has potential to be way better than either a helicopter or a small airplane. Even ignoring the air-taxi business, there's a market for this aircraft.

So let's flip to the business side. An easy target for making these at scale would be $500,000 per aircraft. (Might be able to half that, but lets be conservative). Operating costs at scale, max $100/hr, could be one quarter that.

On the revenue side, this would replace a two hour trip across a city in traffic with a fifteen minute flight. Unless you've flow small aircraft before it's hard to appreciate just how much faster it is not to use roads. There's definitely going to be some market for this - that's worth money.

<comment><USER5> > A Cirrus SR22 can go 1,200 miles on 80 gallons of gas. That's roughly > speaking 15 miles per gallon - better than many pickup trucks or large SUVs.

Sure, let's take the most energy efficient aircraft and compare it to the least energy efficient passenger vehicles??? I mean, how can one even pretend that is a fair comparison.

More generally for energy efficiency, it is well known that the most efficient trip is a shorter one or one never taken. Many fans of these technologies are people who dream of living 90 miles away and fly into town in half an hour. Or as you described "this would replace a two hour trip across a city in traffic with a fifteen minute flight". Comparing MPG when your technology is designed to encourage more miles is a flawed approach.

<comment><USER4> We do seem to have different value systems. I believe applying energy to make human lives better is a great thing! Electricity usage in the western world is getting greener fast. Total usage is going down, not up. This isn't going to reverse either of those trends.

There's a popular perception that all aircraft burn energy like an oil refinery on fire. The reality is that small piston aircraft are approximately as fuel efficient as the vehicles around you on the highway (at least where I live) while getting you there a whole lot faster.

A Cirrus is a good comparison stand in for the KittyHawk aircraft because it has a similar design and construction style (ignoring the dodeca-props), four seats, and is the most common general aviation aircraft not designed in the 1950's. A Cirrus isn't even close to the most energy efficient aircraft - <USER2> would be more like 60 mpg, nor is it the most efficient in its class.

<comment><USER6> > _The reality is that small piston aircraft are approximately as fuel > efficient as the vehicles around you on the highway_

This is just objectively wrong.

Before taking wind into account, a Cessna 172 travels 120kts on a good day and at altitude and appropriately leaned can get down to 8 gallons an hour.

120 nautical miles in 140 miles (less, but benefit of the doubt and all). That's 17.5 miles per gallon. At cruise altitude. Leaned appropriately. You can tack on another few gallons for the climb, and you're going mixture rich on descent so you're back up to 10-11 gph for the last 20-30 miles of your trip. You're lucky to get 10mpg overall for a flight, and that's using gas that costs $5 a gallon.

There are a LOT of benefits to GA flight in order to get around. Fuel efficiency is definitely not one of them.

<comment><USER7> He specified "general aviation aircraft not designed in the 1950's." The Cessna 172 was first flown in 1955: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_172](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_172)

Also, it may be worth taking into account that airplanes travel in straighter lines.

<comment><USER8> Planes are updated, just an FYI. And most GA aircraft are older. That's how most people fly, by buying an aircraft that is the price of a car (<$50k).

I fly a Cherokee 140. One of the most common aircraft, as with the Skyhawk. My fuel consumption is 8.4gal/hr at 75% mixture and 5.6gal/hr at 50%. Assuming I'm doing an average ground track of 100mph (for easy math), that's 12-18mpg (not counting that I'm 100% rich at TO and LND).

I wouldn't exactly call it fuel efficient, but it isn't burning like an oil refinery on fire either. I also don't pay $5 for gas ($4.09 today, but it isn't uncommon to see it at $3.50). But you do have to consider speed and time to destination if we're going to compare to cars.

One thing to also consider is that avgas is still leaded. And for anyone interested, here is the POH for the Skyhawk[1] and Cherokee[2]. Note that fuel consumption will be in hours or gal/hr when discussing aircraft. Mpg doesn't make as much sense.

[1] [https://www.flyingd.net/documents/N739EF_172N_POH_000.pdf](https://www.flyingd.net/documents/N739EF_172N_POH_000.pdf)

[2] [http://wilgroveairport.net/files/Cherokee%20140%20POH.pdf](http://wilgroveairport.net/files/Cherokee%20140%20POH.pdf)

Disclaimer: Use the POH provided with your aircraft.

<comment><USER6> Cherokee 180/181 checking in! $4.09 would be great, $5.12 at my base this morning. $0.35 club discount helps though.

<comment><USER8> I fly in the south and as long as I'm not at a major airport (in class G) I can get gas pretty cheap. Poking around on some maps I can even find it cheaper.

Really all depends where you fly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lot of negative comments here. I must say I'm impressed and I applaud these people for building an innovative working thing and taking it to production. No pilot - mind blown.

And sure, this might not be the solution to humanity's overall mobility, but heck I can see it being useful in many ways.

<comment><USER10> I agree that the technology is exciting to see but I think there is a lot of negative comments because there is a lot skepticism (which engineers tend to be including myself due to the nature of our work). That being said, most commercial flights are actually on autopilot during cruise. Pilots can choose to use auto takeoff and landing as well but I believe it requires a specific license and copious amount of paperwork. Pilots are important because of liability and federal law.

<comment><USER8> As a pilot and engineer, I think there are good reasons to be skeptical. Here's some of my questions.

1) Can it autorotate? Or in an emergency does it have to glide?

1.5) What's its glide distance? Cruising altitude? There's a lot of drag from those propellers so I imagine its best glide speed isn't great.

2) How are you going to get it in a city? Seems like you're going to have to go to the local GA airport (which are fairly frequent, but you'll still need a normal taxi).

3) There is a really limited range (100km or 60mi) and only goes 150kph (90mph) (I'm guessing max cruising speed, so real world you'll see it going slower, plus you have to consider TO and LND). That's not very far and not very fast.

4) GA is dangerous. How is it communicating with ATC? Can ATC divert it? Will it integrate into the standards (N1234 fly one niner zero). What happens when someone doesn't use the standard (this WILL happen)? So can it fly in class B airspace? I even have questions about class C and D. And how is it going to handle GA aircraft? And if it is in class G how does it deal with that person that isn't using the radio? Does the computer know when its own radio isn't working? And does it know ATC light signals?

5) Who is doing the inspection? In GA we check everything before we fly. Sure you can automate fuel levels, oil, etc. But how are you checking things like propeller or airframe cracks? And is it doing runups? How often?

6) Is it VFR? IFR? What altitude is it flying at? How does it handle cross wind? Which is going to be a big pain if you are flying in cities.

And as to why pilots not only choose, but are required (in the US), to do TO and LND is because that's BY FAR the most dangerous part. I can even tell you I'm thinking a lot more during TO. As a pilot you're constantly thinking about what you're going to do if there is an engine failure. During TO you're under 1000ft and the runway is behind you (you can't turn around). LND, well at least you got the runway ahead of you. Cruising? You got plenty of time to figure out where you're going to go. Pilots aren't just required because liability and federal law, they are required because automation isn't there yet. I can tell you that it is hard to see aircraft in flight. Especially in conditions like sunrises and sunsets. Many accidents happen on clear and sunny days.

There's a lot of things I like about it, but there is legitimately a lot of reason for concern. But it is a prototype after all.

<comment><USER11> FAA struck down google's first prototype, that's why they test in NZ

<comment><USER8> That would really give me concern.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can anyone chime in how this aircraft is so energy efficient? It seems like the props on the wing will give a ridiculous amount of drag. Also, one of the key requirements for an energy efficient rear prop plane is super laminar air going to through the rear prop for efficient thrust. The wing design seems to remove this advantage.

Edit: Also, I thought smaller props for vertical flight is significantly less efficient than one large prop like a helicopter?

That being said, I always had a soft spot for aircraft startup after working at one in my younger days. Pretty interesting to see how this ends up especially with Sebastian Thrun on the team.

<comment><USER12> I don't know for sure, but I think that autorotation of the multiple vertical rotors provide substantial lift even if they're not being actively driven, similar to the tree seeds that autorotate as they fall.

<comment><USER13> Auto rotation converts air speed (i.e. drag) into lift. That may slightly reduce the relative costs of drag (by providing benefit) but it still has to be overcome by forward momentum.

<comment><USER14> But that's probably more of an issue for max speed than it is for efficiency, which would explain why it's operating speed is only 150kmph.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From an aircraft design perspective, it is an interesting choice.

I can't help think that this design, with dedicated lift engines is just not very mass efficient. The pylons and the twelve motors also add a lot of drag in horizontal flight, even though they've taken steps to reduce it.

As of today, if I was designing an air taxi from scratch, I'd go with a tail- sitting VTOL, like the E-flite X-VERT:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFXibbgNix8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFXibbgNix8)

For a full-sized aircraft, since you can't vary rotor speed very quickly for large motors, you'd need to add variable pitch propellers. The passengers would sit in a pod which rotates to keep them level during all flight modes.

And, as other commenters have mentioned, a ballisticly-deployed parachute for safety. And maybe emergency landing skids for a horizontal landing if needed.

I know that electric flight is part of the selling point of this design, but I'd still prefer to use fossil fuel for the energy density.

I'd love to try it out if it goes into production!

</comment><comment><USER16> Small planes have had parachutes for quite some time [1] now and have saved many lives. Why on earth would this company put people up into the air unmanned without one? [Personally, if a parachute was onboard I wouldn't mind jumping into one.]

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

<comment><USER17> > [Personally, if a parachute was onboard I wouldn't mind jumping into one.]

The cabin opens in a clamshell fashion and that appears to be the only way in or out. Opening the canopy mid-flight would probably result in shearing it off once it catches even a small amount of air. From there, you're left with exit point that's ahead of the wing, ahead of the main propeller, and ahead of the rather wide tail section.

Maybe you'd be clear if you hugged the bottom of the door and kind of… rolled underneath at exit?

As a skydiver who's exited all sorts of planes in all sorts of ways, I would rather take my chances landing with that plane.

\--

Edit: on further review, I believe you mean "if the aircraft were equipped with CAPS, I wouldn't mind flying in one" as opposed to "if the aircraft came with a bail-out rig, I wouldn't mind strapping it on". Nevermind :-)

<comment><USER4> The Cirrus has a whole aircraft parachute - you can see it used here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J94sGh8fQN8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J94sGh8fQN8)

<comment><USER17> Oops, I mis-read the comment. Edited to clarify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> They claim that it is quiet, but there is no audio to give any sense of that. I would want to hear two people having a conversation while it takes off nearby.

<comment><USER19> Zero chance this thing is anything a normal person would consider quiet. Moving enough air to generate the thrust it takes to transport humans is not quiet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> For those who are not aware, the kittyhawk is the place where wright brothers tested and developed their plane.

<comment><USER21> Kitty Hawk, NC - to be specific! It's why North Carolina license plates say "First in Flight."

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm very skeptical on the energy expenditure here, this does seem to be a fairly energy intensive mode of transport, but I assume the market would balance the price accordingly.

It certainly doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would become a mainstream mode of transport without a big change in the energy market.

<comment><USER23> According to the 2016 Uber Elevate study, traditional cars achieve about 1 mile/kWh, electric cars about 3 mile/kWh, and electric planes about 2 mile/kWh.

To simplify, one trades roll drag for induced (=lift generating) drag, at higher speeds.

The bigger issues are battery performance (specific energy), and regulation, in my view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I had to check it's not April 1st. Especially after watching the youtube video. I'm still skeptical that it won't turn out to be an april fools prank.

<comment> ju-st I'm developing a paranoia that the Alphabet moonshot projects are just PR to obfuscate the data privacy issues of Google's advertising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think it's perfect for transportation. A share model could really exist with it, less infrastructure.

If it becomes popular, entire cities could change how they look ( roof = taxi, roads for bicycles and deliveries on the roof)

</comment><comment><USER26> This will be great for millionaire 1% Googlers to fly to work from Monterey.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't like that they're touting no emissions. Electricity has to be generated and in the US that's mainly coal. Hybrid vehicles are closer to having it right where running the car charges it and you can get by burning significantly less fuel. Strictly electrical has not been shown to be an energy saver or a flag bearer of emissions reduction. In many cases so far it has been a cause of more pollution than modern engines using oil.

<comment><USER28> > Electricity has to be generated and in the US that's mainly coal.

Huh? Coal is only 30% of the USA's energy production, natural gas is higher at 34%.

[https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electrici...](https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states)

The other points in your post are equally dubious, do you have sources?

<comment><USER29> Are you suggesting natural gas generation is "Green"?

<comment><USER28> No, I'm only suggesting that natural gas isn't coal.

From an air quality perspective, at least, natural gas is much better than coal. But it is far from carbon neutral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What's the long pointy bit that sticks out from the nose for?

<comment><USER31> A single pitot probe it seems, so no triple redundancy? Also cannot spot any angle of attack sensors or anti icing measures (perhaps electric?). I hope it has a BRS at least..

There are a lot of things in aviation written it blood. A lot of work hours sunk into inspecting the swiss cheese from every angle, until the light does not shine through. Not the most welcoming ground for "disruption".

Still, even the most modern autopilot will drop the controls to the pilot's lap almost routinely.

<comment> FLUX-YOU >Still, even the most modern autopilot will drop the controls to the pilot's lap almost routinely.

And is likely why their "you won't need a license to ride, because it's automated" line is going to disappear once the FAA notices this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love it. Can't wait to see the first batch of production reviews from customers.

Also on energy usage:

Why does it matter how much electrical energy it uses? We know how to harness a near infinite amount.

<comment><USER33> > Why does it matter how much electrical energy it uses? We know how to > harness a near infinite amount.

This is a silly thing to say while there's still quite so much CO2 being emitted from electricity production.

<comment><USER34> I suspect the OP means solar and wind. It's a fair point given that these have batteries, and could easily swap them out for precharged ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> My understanding is that a larger, slower turning propeller is more efficient than a smaller, faster propeller. If so, why do drone companies/small aircraft companies have been pushing the more and smaller propellers model? Better aircraft control? Optimizing for range and battery life doesn't seem like a bad idea.

<comment><USER4> So there are two ways to control a rotor craft.

You can adjust the angles of individual blades, changing this angle multiple times each rotor sweep, as helicopters do. This is expensive, complex, things wear out, and a safety risk for the aircraft.

Or you can do what quadcopters do, direct drive the rotor and just adjust the speed of the entire rotor. This gets rid of both the Swashplate system and a transmission. It's lightweight, simple, and cheap. The problem is that it doesn't scale well to bigger rotors. When a rotor gets too big, it has enough inertia that you can't speed it up and slow it down fast enough to control your aircraft. Also, as you get bigger, you want a slower spinning rotor, and current electric motors aren't happy direct driving at that slower speed.

If you want to use the simple system, you have to use small rotors for now.

<comment><USER36> One additional point that is worth making regarding this rotational inertia in the blades is that this is what makes auto-rotation possible. In an engine-out situation a helicopter has a lot of energy stored in these blades and by conserving this as much as possible while 'falling' the pilot can pull up on the cyclic when close to the ground to trade the energy for enough lift to survive the crash. A direct-drive drone propeller cannot auto-rotate, and if for some reason it has an in-flight emergency that interrupts electrical power to the VTOL rotors it will plummet like a brick. I am not sure about the glide characteristics of those wings, but with all of the drag from the non- operative drone rotors I am guessing it would be somewhere between 'awful' and 'lawn-dart'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> That video is so cringy.

<comment><USER38> What did you expect from a product called KittyHawk?

<comment><USER39> I'm not sure I get why that name would imply cringiness: isn't it named for the Wright brothers' proving ground? Is there a reference I'm missing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It seems the vertical take off blades become dead weight and air resistance in horizontal flight. Could they auto-rotate instead, aiding lift? Similar to how an auto gyro works. The wings would be the primary lift providers but why not take advantage of the vertical blades as well?

<comment><USER18> The key figure is the lift to drag ratio - as the lift needed is determined by the weight, then that divided by lift / drag gives you the thrust you need to keep flying. Autorotating small blades are not efficient lift generators, compared to fixed wings, which can have lift / drag ratios over 50 (though not on this machine.) Even partial lift from the rotors would reduce the overall lift / drag ratio. In addition, having the rotors generate lift would have an effect on the airflow over the wing, and probably be detrimental to its efficiency - it is bad enough that they are there at all, especially those in front of the wing.

<comment><USER40> Would a classic helicopter rotor overhead be a better solution, paired with those classic wide horizontal wings? Lift with the rotor, then thrust with the rear prop, using both wing and auto rotating overhead rotor combined for maximum lift.

Requires a tail rotor or similar. Perhaps the rear thrust motor or prop can be rotated sideways for takeoff? Now we're getting complex, but not extraordinarily so.

Ape4 noted would add weight and complexity. Any more than eight small electric motors and props do now?

<comment><USER18> There have been several experimental aircraft like that [1] [2], but they are more like augmented helicopters than fixed-wing aircraft with VTOL. Aerodynamically, the arrangement is a biplane, and biplanes are rather inefficient because interference between the flows over the two wings reduces the overall efficiency.

Note that in the case of the Sikorsky S-72, the intent was to stop the rotor in cruise.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_X3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_X3)

[2] [http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/sik_x- wing.php](http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/sik_x-wing.php)

<comment><USER40> Thank you. Looks like what I have in mind is called a Gyrodyne[1] or Heliplane[2]. I would expect it would have almost the same range and speed as an airplane with VTOL capabilities. As you mentioned, the interaction between the two flight surfaces may be too inefficient, but the X3 you linked to broke the unofficial speed record, so there's that.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBA- DARPA_Heliplane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBA-DARPA_Heliplane)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > No traffic lights

? only as long as there are just a few flying around. Once there are some with crossing routes you will need air traffic city rules as well.

I am really interested to see how that would pan out.

<comment><USER42> You don't need traffic lights on a 3D space. Air traffic rules are very different.

<comment><USER18> When your airplane is stacked in a holding pattern, waiting for clearance to land, it is essentially at a red light. If you and everyone else going to the same place are in electric airplanes, there is the potential for some real range anxiety.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I just gave a talk on flying cars. It turns out technical difficulty is not the reason we don't have flying cars, or self-driving cars.

Innovation is one way new technologies can change the world. For example, the reason we have skyscrapers is due to the elevator brake.

Elevators have existed in some form or another for over 2,000 years. But without the modern innovation of the elevator brake, nobody felt safe being hoisted by a rope up into the air, where a fall could kill you. And nobody looked forward to walking dozens of flights of stairs. A new combination of a spring, gravity, and a ratchet-and-pawl (all existing for over 2,000 years, the same as the elevator itself) gave humans the feeling of safely moving up and down in space that they didn't have before.

But innovation is not a guarantee of success. Electric cars have existed for 190 years. Their innovation, combined with the development of modern batteries, made them the most popular car by the beginning of the 20th century. But two decades later they disappeared, when cheaper, more convenient, more useful gas cars became available. It took another 60 years to develop a new production EV.

In comparison to land-based vehicles, drones are used to fly automated GPS- coordinated routes around the world every day. There are about 31.7 Million airplane flights over the USA every year. And even though 37,000 people die in car crashes every year, only 399 people died in air crashes in 2017 (world wide!). Not only are flying vehicles clearly safer than driving, we can very reliably coordinate flying vehicles.

So why don't we have automated flying cars? Nobody decided to build them. Until startups like this one do the actual hard, long-term, complicated work to coordinate all the necessary pieces, and can figure out how to make it both convenient and cost-effective, it just doesn't happen. And the same is true of self-driving cars.

Until someone decides to coordinate all the complicated parts to get it working, it doesn't exist. Sometimes this takes convincing society to make compromises - like, you don't get the "freedom" of piloting your own vehicle, unless you are very very well trained to do so. And sometimes it just takes lots of elbow grease. Personally, I think we need more of the former than the latter. But I'm glad this company is taking on both challenges.

<comment><USER20> What unless ? This is fun. I understand most of the engineering is in regression, but still making things that fly is fun. Only problem is money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Firstly, I commend them for getting the vision started more than anyone else I've seen. It's a V1 commercial product and they seem to have the resources to iterate. That being said, it's not a very aesthetic craft. Sadly, they didn't figure out how not to have wings. It's like they took a Cessna/Piper and threw on 6 electric motors on each wing and a big battery pack and called it a flying car. Their former hovercraft product was much cooler!

</comment><comment><USER45> Once this becomes practical with regulations worked out, there will likely be more people who choose to live in Napa Valley, Stockton, or Sacramento and commute to San Francisco or Palo Alto.

Real estate prices in those places might be affected a bit.

The same with New Jersey and Manhattan. What are some other areas that this might be the case?

Once the direction becomes clearer, perhaps someone should start an REIT with a focus on arbitraging transportation revolution.

</comment><comment><USER46> Ummm, are there flight corridors defined for low flying aircraft? You can't just fly in a straight line everywhere. You can't just fly over a densely populated area and how do you avoid crashing into other flying taxis?

</comment><comment><USER47> You read the comments and you think everybody gets it, but then nobody gets it.

Google must be too early.

</comment><comment><USER48> Anyone know how much this costs per mile?

<comment><USER20> Less than gas car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> solutions for the .01%

<comment><USER50> It always starts with them before it trickles down to the rest of us. Let's hope they use it and beta test it for us.

<comment><USER49> Nah, let's hope one of them gets an itch to become public transportation's savior.

<comment><USER51> it isnt sexy enough and wont make them any return. completely agree with you. its a total waste of resources. never gonna happen

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> What's the utility of using electric motors over turboprops, etc? Is it just the simplicity factor?

</comment><comment><USER53> Another flying car company. Many have tried. Before doing uber-air, first perfect the flying car as an aircraft. That hasnt happened. Then we can talk about the robot at the controls or the app that will summon it.

Get all the air safety stuff done. Biuld a few thousand non-experimentals. Have people actually fly these things daily. Then worry about disrupting the car market.

<comment><USER31> I think it being autonomous is integral to it being a "success". Energy density is still a major limitation and doing away with the pilot can be one way to make the numbers work economy wise. A flesh and bone pilot will come at a substantial weight penalty, effectively reducing the utility of this 2 seater by half.

As a licenced pilot myself, I am with you, however. Would not climb into this death trap as a self loading freight any time soon.

<comment><USER54> Seeing the rates of "single vehicle accidents" in small aircraft piloted by amateurs, I'm happier with the autonomy.

Also, autonomy in the sky seems easier than autonomy on the ground.

If Thrun is involved, chances are it will work pretty well...

<comment><USER31> > Also, autonomy in the sky seems easier than autonomy on the ground.

This is debatable.

A car has only 1 degree of freedom. An aircraft typically has 3 degrees of freedom.

A car rests on solid ground. An aircraft is submerged in a fluid medium.

A ground vehicle can adjust it's speed to the conditions, if necessary slow down if confidence levels get lower, or even go backwards. An aircraft is typically subject to an aerodynamic envelope.

As for the sky being empty, take a look at this harrowing story of a biz jet encountering the wake turbulence of a A380. Airframe written off, crew earn their lifetime salary. Autopilot took 13 seconds to conk out.

[https://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3](https://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3)

Turns out modern aircraft following airways to a precision of mere meters has increased such incidences. In the olden days pilots where often a bit off the track. To simulate this sloppiness in flying rigor, a thing called SLOP has been conceived, for Strategic Lateral Offset Procedures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> All I can think about is Clifford Simak's "City."

<comment><USER56> leave it to the dogs

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Finally we are getting flying cars instead of 140 characters.

</comment><comment><USER58> I must say I'm against this development. First of all, even if electric, this is certainly a very inefficient way of transportation that will 'waste' a lot of energy to transport maybe 4 people.

The resulting price of this technology will result in the 99% stuck on the ground while the only te 1% can afford the fare.

And even if it becomes a regular mode of transportation, do you really want these planes to fly over your apartment/house every few minutes? They might be more quiet than a Cessna but they wll certainly still be disturbing

<comment><USER31> I agree. People talking about flying cars sound a lot like people demanding faster horses. Or flying horses.

I do not think the American dream of a private car scales too well to the future, be it with rubber wheels or tiny propellers. Especially given the population growth.

Instead, a brief visit to Singapore, for example, will convince anyone what the future of transportation looks like. A public transport system, enabling a lifestyle that makes cars redundant.

<comment><USER59> How safe is Singapore public transportation and walking?

The reason I ask is that neither are as safe as driving here in the US which i consider a major blocker in the public transportation utopia people keep dreaming up.

Relevant discussion I have had about this topic: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16462803](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16462803)

<comment><USER60> I have a hard time believing that public transportation or walking are more dangerous than driving in the US or elsewhere.

Do you have any statistics on walking or public transit safety? I couldnt find any, though car safety is very accessible.

edit: It seems the vast majority of pedestrian accidents are because of collisions with cars. In a future with more public transport and walking, they will be even safer.

<comment><USER59> I should have clarified that the safety I am referring to is from other people in the form of harassment and assaults.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Holy sheep, new zealand looks beautiful

</comment><comment><USER62> Am I the only one who finds it endlessly annoying to refer to anything that's primarily (or exclusively) powered by a battery as "green" or "emissions free" or "pollution free" or anything else?

What about the energy to manufacture, ship, assemble, design, test (or clean up when it fails), etc. That all takes energy and most of that energy probably comes from coal or some other environmental nightmare resource.

<comment><USER63> All manufactured goods needs to be produced, and that production invariably requires energy and raw materials.

There is no alternative method of production that requires no energy or resources. Instead, the distinction is made between things that _cannot_ be used without creating harmful emissions (ICE for example) and things that can be used without creating those emissions (like battery power).

But you are correct that it takes energy to "manufacture, ship, assemble, design, test" etc. This is true for literally everything, from pencils to houses to flying cars, and it always has been.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> KittyHawk is not an Alphabet startup. It is no affiliated with Alphabet. The title is misleading.

<comment><USER65> Another article on HN today says it has personal funding from Larry Page. ie not Alphabet.

<comment><USER66> Source for that: [http://www.businessinsider.com/google-cofounder-larry- page-f...](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-cofounder-larry-page-funding- owns-flying-car-companies-zee-aero-kitty-hawk-2016-6)

"not clear how much"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Finally the 21st century gives us flying cars, and all that happens is _people complain about it_.

HackerNews indeed.

<comment><USER67> "We know almost nothing about the vehicle, price, performance, or details, but as someone who has never worked with aircraft or lived in New Zealand let me tell you why this is the worst idea I've ever heard and why the people building it are dumb idiots."

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Interesting that they'd release this video the same day a helicopter crash featured prominently in the news.

<comment><USER68> Does anyone think it was a _good_ PR move? This is one of those deals where I'm actually curious about the reaction here.</comment></comment>


IBM to cut more than 111,000 jobs in largest corporate lay-off ever - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/ibm-cut-more-111000-jobs-this-week-largest-corporate-lay-off-ever-1485128?platform=hootsuite <comment><USER2> Check the date before upvoting; this is from a year ago.</comment>