The Decline And Fall Of Flowtab, A Startup Story - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/31/the-decline-and-fall-of-flowtab-a-startup-story/ <comment><USER2> I am the founder of Flowtab, and my goal in writing this story was to share what we learned and accomplished instead of letting it rot for eternity in Dropbox. Thus, we opensourced everything from our pitchdeck to source code on Flowtab.com.

Kyle Hill and I are already back at it. Together, we launched www.homehero.org a marketplace for senior caregivers, let me know your feedback!

\- Mike Townsend

<comment><USER3> Thank you for going the open source route! There are so many cases where a company goes under and something of value is lost because the original developers couldn't maintain it.

For example, I would have loved to have seen a community-maintained version of Glitch [1] take over after the game died out, but Tiny Speck refused to open up the source code because they believed it would be too complicated for anyone but themselves to run—a justification which has never made sense to me.

And if nothing else, it gives a deep peek into how a production system is run, something I'm always grateful for.

[1] [http://www.glitch.com/](http://www.glitch.com/)

<comment><USER2> I agree, and thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not all startup failures are created equal, but when it comes to true flops like this one, one of the commonalities I've noticed is a general inability of the founders to step back and see the forest for the trees.

From [http://alpha.flowtab.com/](http://alpha.flowtab.com/):

       We also set a major company milestone to reach 50 "Flowtab regulars" (defined by 2 or more orders in a trailing 30 day period) by March 1st 2013.

That's a really remarkable comment given that the venture was started in May 2011. With its $1 per order fee, this means that after nearly two years, the company's "major" goal was to acquire 50 customers who would deliver a baseline of $100 in revenue in a month.

Sadly, one of the lessons listed on [http://alpha.flowtab.com/](http://alpha.flowtab.com/) is "Do things that don't scale."

<comment><USER2> Agreed. I was the founder of Flowtab and I can tell you we always felt just one step away from success. We felt mobile ordering was inevitable and those who fought the hardest for the longest would win. I think different now...

<comment><USER5> It seems like the "inevitibe" attitude works contrary to startups.

Its like a convenient way to remove your obligation of actually encouraging people to do something because "they'll do it on their own"

Many things that seem inevitable are only so in retrospect. At the time, they were probably seen as unlikely or simply possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Flowtab wasn't saving you enough time or energy to make it a compelling experience."

Serious question - was it ever going to? It always seemed like a backend-heavy way to optimize for a trivial inconvenience. I have to say, It seems to me this was a failure because it was just plain a bad idea. That makes for a pretty short story, though, I guess.

<comment><USER2> With 50,000 bars/nightclubs in the US, and witnessing the success of other mobile payments companies (Levelup, Kuapay, and Starbucks app) it seemed inevitable especially considering the poor ordering experience in many establishments.

Mike T

<comment><USER6> Is Levelup actually considered successful? I have seen it in several establishments around here (Seattle) but I have never seen it used, and the employees tell me it is not popular or easy (unlike, say, Square). I don't know Kuapay. Starbucks had something of a firm place from which to launch, so it's not really comparable.

What's the poor ordering experience? Trying to get the bartender's attention? I would submit that a poor order experience is a consequence of the establishment, not the fundamentals of the ordering process. Personally, I like the bar experience, it's personal, it's immediate, you can get recommendations, and it's fairly equitable for everyone around (shovers will be ignored by a good bartender, though a good bartender is by no means guaranteed). On the other hand, a remote ordering situation turns every bar into a drink machine activated by an impersonal, drive-thru-like interface. If you prefer that to the existing system, perhaps you should patronize a better bar!

I agree that there is probably some interesting way to leverage personal technology in this space, but it's not this. This app does not improve the "ordering experience," it eliminates it. That's a bad idea.

<comment><USER7> It's in Boston a fair amount, I see people using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great postmortem. These kinds of high-altitude narratives, which describe the overall lifecycle and tell the key stories, are utterly fascinating, success or failure. When you're so focused on something, then discover parallel narratives to your experience, you gain perspective that's useful and even emotionally valuable.

They're very common within the game development world, after becoming a regular, beloved feature of Game Developer Magazine (now defunct). Here's a big list of them, perfect for a Saturday afternoon:

[http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of- postmortems/](http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-postmortems/)

Is there any collection of these kinds of articles for contemporary startups, or similar postmortems that are also worth reading?

<comment><USER9> Back in the early 2000's, it was FuckedCompany.com. It was a daily dose of layoffs and shut-downs amongst (mostly) tech startups.

<comment><USER10> There is TechCrunch's Deadpool now. Not updated nearly as frequently as FC used to be.

[http://techcrunch.com/tag/deadpool/](http://techcrunch.com/tag/deadpool/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Vitamins and painkillers. I see a ton of small businesses around Seattle using Square, and purchase food with a small literally hole-in-the-wall restaurant with it about once a week. Square solves a very serious pain point.

This seems to be more on the vitamin end of the spectrum. It doesn't solve a pressing issue I have when I walk into a bar. On a related note, this idea also seems to suffer from almost a marketplace-style issue: both the seller and purchaser need to use the app, which just makes things even harder.

If you do decide to tackle a marketplace idea again in the future, I recommend adopting a multiple phase approach where the first part doesn't require buyers and sellers. Build a product that will benefit one side or the other (I recommend the sellers), and then pivot into a marketplace strategy once you have sufficient traction.

Edit: in reading over the article in more detail, I have one thought. I personally would've tried positioning the software as an easier means to order room service in hotels. Ordering room service sucks, and I'd much rather use the equivalent of Eat24 or GrubHub than picking up the phone.

<comment><USER12> _Square solves a very serious pain point._

Depends. I've seen and heard multiple stories of cab drivers or business owners failing to process using Square. For them, it certainly was more of an annoyance than a painkiller. In most these cases, I ended up paying cash.

Also, here's a truth about painkillers that few talk about: painkillers are quickly commoditized. This is why you'll find vitamins to cost more than tylenol even though it's the Tylenol that helps you when you have 102 fever.

<comment><USER11> I think you're taking me a little too literally.

Incidentally, worldwide vitamin sales are expected to reach $3.3bn in 2015[1] while pain management drugs (ranging from OTC drugs to opiates) are expected to hit $60bn the same year[2]. So, painkillers revenue is ~20x vitamins.

[1] [http://www.prweb.com/releases/vitamins/food_supplements/prwe...](http://www.prweb.com/releases/vitamins/food_supplements/prweb8114929.htm)

[2] [http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/1/prweb8052240.htm](http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/1/prweb8052240.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've noticed that there are a lot of startup ideas that fall into the general category of "if we can get businesses to adopt us and get users to adopt us then ... profit."

I worked for a company called DoTheGood way back in 2001 that had a similar issue, although our problem was even worse since we really needed 3 parties to adopt us (businesses, nonprofits, and users).

I think these sorts of ventures are just incredibly difficult to make work without a massive amount of money to throw into advertising and sales. There's a huge chicken and egg problem where, in the FlowTab case, users want bars to adopt it and bars want users. You can't just hope that your technology is nice enough because no matter how nice it is, without enough bars _and_ users the tech is worthless.

If you have millions (or tens of millions) to push into advertising (to acquire users) and sales (to acquire businesses) then maybe it could work, but it just makes things that much harder.

Of course, we can identify some startups that did make it despite the chicken and egg problem, like AirBNB and eBay, to name a few.

<comment><USER14> It's known as a two-sided market ([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two- sided_market](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-sided_market)). Very challenging to start, particularly if it requires upfront fixed-cost for one or both parties, as in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great story. TC, VB and others should do pieces like this more often. One comment:

 _Flowtab could not be distributed through partnership with companies that sell Point of Sale (POS) systems._

Anyone have insights into why this is?

<comment><USER2> I do! So before Flowtab I built ZingCheckout, a web Point of Sale (now used by Tesla Motors). I learned a ton about POS distribution, it was a big part of our growth strategy. However, a POS reseller really can't justify the cost in selling only Flowtab (like you could with a POS) because it was an ancillary product and couldn't yield the high upfront sales $ from bar owners.

Mike Townsend

<comment><USER16> Was the focus on mobile ordering or mobile checkout at the end of the night (or when the patron decided to leave?)

Integration with a POS would make that a better experience than everybody trying to get the bartenders attention to close out the tab.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> While the story of the rise and fall of Flowtab was compelling, I thought Flowtab did a great job with [http://alpha.flowtab.com](http://alpha.flowtab.com). This site is a really effective way of telling their story and I commend them for including several "artifacts" (resources) for public consumption. It's never easy to admit failure...

<comment><USER18> Thank you... I think it's valuable that entrepreneurs learn everything they can from the fallen soldiers before them before dedicating valuable years of their life to a startup. That's why open sourcing this was so important to us.

I like to think of startup guys as scientists... even if we didn't find the cure for cancer, there's still value in discovering the 100 antidotes that DIDN'T work.

FYI the alpha site is the same as our main site, www.flowtab.com.

Kyle H.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Its life became a startup story that most don't tell: A company that didn't make it."

Well actually there have been quite a few of these lately.

</comment><comment><USER20> When I go to a bar, I want some human interaction for a change. Ordering drinks is part of the experience. But that's just me.

I am sure this was a fantastic learning experience for the founders.

Best of luck next time!

</comment><comment><USER21> The problem was that this idea was a feature of a point-of-sale (POS) system, not a product.</comment>


5G BlackBerry phone with Android and a physical keyboard will arrive in 2021 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/19/21375026/5g-blackberry-phone-android-physical-keyboard-2021-release-date <comment><USER2> Honest question: how do people feel about physical keyboards on phones these days? I'm not going to knock this until I know more about it, but I would be a little surprised if there are a lot of folks who, after having gotten used to a standard onscreen keyboard, still prefer punching physical buttons.

I have a BlackBerry, albeit an ancient one—8830 World Edition—and I actually turned it on the other day. Typing on it really was weird—it felt like it required a lot of physical effort to use. (And I remember thinking that BlackBerries had excellent keyboards, as opposed to the Treo; I had one of those, too, and it felt like typing on pencil erasers.)

I'm not trying to sound condescending, but a physical keyboard on a phone feels sort of like training wheels to me; something that an old-school phone person might assume is more usable than the tiny buttons of an onscreen keyboard. But then you realize how accurate the key-sensing on screen keyboards actually is, and how much less energy it takes to tap than press.

I have no idea, but I do know that when I used my old BlackBerry the other day, it felt uncomfortably like using a mechanical typewriter. I'll be curious to see how this goes.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's also the Fxtec Pro phone [0], which doesn't look too bad from the spec and the reviews. If I were on the lookout for a new phone I'd seriously consider it.

For some reason I never get along with screen keyboards, even after 8 years or so. I press the wrong key every 5 characters or so, and the auto correct is very seldom right.

I've tried many keyboards, currently I've settled on google keyboard app. I'm very unhappy with its accuracy, but it's slightly better than the alternatives.

I should add I'm not a native English speaker, most of my phone interaction is in my native language, but when I do write English google's keyboard app's autocorrect seems to be much more intelligent. Still, the need to constantly look at it is tiring.

Maybe it's because I'm a relatively fast typist since an early age, and used to the feel of physical keys and placing my fingers just so, so I'm more annoyed with the inaccuracy of phone keyboards compared to other people, I don't know. I also tend to be very verbose in writing, compared to other people I know.

So even after 9 years I haven't touched it, I find myself still missing my old Nokia phone every time I try to write a detailed message on my new Android phone...

[0] [https://www.fxtec.com/](https://www.fxtec.com/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Keyboard that represents "brand values" and "angling the device to enterprise customers" sounds like OnwardMobility gets what it is all about.</comment>


Complex Car Software Becomes the Weak Spot Under the Hood - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/business/complex-car-software-becomes-the-weak-spot-under-the-hood.html <comment><AUTHOR> > Though automakers say they know of no malicious hacking incidents so far, > the risks are real. Stefan Savage, a computer security professor at the > University of California, San Diego, said that automakers were "in a state > of panic" over the prospect. "They are trying to figure out what to do, > quickly," he said.

It's going to take a long time to pay down decades worth of technical debt.</comment>


Russian Ponzi consumes 8.5% of all Ethereum daily gas - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/FrankResearcher/status/1250504460557676544 <comment><USER2> Any usage is good for Ethereum. Historically, the price has went up the more it's been used.</comment>


The World's Fastest Scrabble Program (1988) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/academic/class/15451-s06/www/lectures/scrabble.pdf

<comment><USER2> Better pdf at [http://www.gtoal.com/wordgames/jacobson+appel/aj.pdf](http://www.gtoal.com/wordgames/jacobson+appel/aj.pdf)

Source code at [http://www.gtoal.com/wordgames/jacobson+appel/mac/Crab_sourc...](http://www.gtoal.com/wordgames/jacobson+appel/mac/Crab_sources/Macintosh/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've written a very fast Scrabble program in JavaScript which I think should perform on par with it (i.e greedy algorithm that chooses word with best possible score for the next move)

[http://amnond.github.io/jscrab/](http://amnond.github.io/jscrab/)

</comment><comment><USER4> IIRC this was beaten later by Steven Gordon's GADDAG algorithm.

Edit: yep. Fixed name. Here's the Wikipedia link:

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GADDAG](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GADDAG)</comment>


Phil Schiller Discusses the new MacBook Pro - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/apple-macbook-pro-new-philip-schiller-interview-phil-iphone-ios-criticism-a7393156.html <comment> purple-dragon tl;dr: tone deaf, lives in echo chamber.</comment>


Debian 8.0 Jessie has been released - <AUTHOR> https://bits.debian.org/2015/04/jessie-released.html

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9437892](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9437892)

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like everything went according to the plan =).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Finally. Jessie's kernel had troubles with my Ivy Bridge GPU, leading to X hangs from time to time. Had to install 4.0.0 from Ubuntu packages, cause there was no linux-kbuild available for any newer kernel than jessie's one in Debian repos for quite a long time :(

</comment><comment><USER4> Woohoo. Thanks to everyone.</comment>


Stacked Git - <AUTHOR> http://www.procode.org/stgit/ <comment><AUTHOR> Recommended by a coworker, this looks excellent for keeping your development branch history presentable for later review once it's merged into master.</comment>


"Early stage VC funding is a myth in the UK" - <AUTHOR> http://scott-allison.net/2011/10/11/early-stage-vc-funding-is-a-myth-in-the-uk/

<comment><USER2> Having lived in the UK for a year, I can completely attest to the sentiment. The lack of seed funding appeared largely cultural to me: many of the angels I interacted with were risk-averse and old-fashioned, looking at rubber-stamps and degrees rather than actual merit. It seemed impossible to get funding as a young entrepreneur (under 25), given the heavy emphasis on traditional industry experience. From talking to other entrepreneurs, there was no tolerance for failure as there is in the Valley, and an utter focus on IRR and incremental businesses with short-term returns, rather than more risky bets with longer time-horizons.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anil is great, he's very smart, has a wide experience of M&A from clean tech to web sector and on top of that is really fun guy to hang out with. Great to have him investing in European startups.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree all round; it will be great once his fund is up and running. The key thing about it is that they will be doing seed investing, and that's where the greatest need is (and he would argue, the greatest returns). It sounds like they intend to be quite innovative in terms of how they assess deals as well, presumably the intention is to comb the whole of Europe for the best unfunded startups.

<comment><USER4> Fantastic news. There is a huge funding gap in the UK that people bridge with grants, government money, and even loans. Early stage investment from someone like Anil will really help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone knows who has replaced Anil as M&A manager for Google EMEA?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question, but i don't think they have. Partly why Eric Schmidt was over here in July doing an event for VCs and angels, the goal was to build closer relationships</comment></comment>


Ask: send email if two images are the same - <AUTHOR> Have an issue at work with a laser cutter. It's in auto change-over mode, finishes cutting one sheet then swaps it out and cuts the next.
Sometimes gets stuck on an error it can't recover from. In talks with supplier to update software to handle error.
I've got a USB webcam sitting inside the machine capturing a still image every 300 seconds. I want to be able to send an email if the two most recent image captures from the webcam are the same, indicating the machine has stopped, so I know to come in and fix it.
Images are being captured on a Windows 7 PC and uploaded to Dropbox. Solution could be any tool on Windows 7, Linux,or MacOS.
Any help would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> Are the two most recent images _actually_ the same, as in a per-pixel match, or are you going to get random noise from dithering etc? If they are literally the same, then this becomes a lot easier.

You could easily set up a simple node.js program that uses fs.watcher to watch for new files, and [https://github.com/lovell/sharp](https://github.com/lovell/sharp) to process the two most recent images and see if the pixels are identical. If you need to package this into a standalone executable, you could use [https://www.npmjs.com/package/pkg](https://www.npmjs.com/package/pkg). Then you could use the built-in SMTP sender (if it is not blocked on your network) or mailgun or something of that nature to send the email.

You can do the same thing in other languages, like ruby, python, etc as well.

If the two images files are literally identical as in the same jpeg with all the same bytes, you could do this with a bash script that compares the sha1 or md5 hash of the two files and then consult [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5155923/sending-a- mail-f...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5155923/sending-a-mail-from-a- linux-shell-script) for how to send an email from a bash script.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response, this gives me a bit to go on.

The images are jpg files from iSpy Connect. I'll see take some sample photos and see if they hash the same.</comment></comment>


Why Do We Believe Impossible Things? - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5817998

<comment><USER2> We HAVE to believe impossible things. Many things have been deemed impossible in the past, but the world changed and they became possible.

Flying used to be impossible, speaking to someone across the world used to be impossible, hell, facebook used to be impossible!

But there were people who thought it was possible, and it's because of them that we can have It's complicated relationships on facebook.

I always encourage people to believe in anything they want, so long they do not try to make others believe in too, and so long they do not insist that their way is the only way.

</comment><comment><USER3> _No other animal has the mental framework for understanding cause and effect, Wolpert says._

Yeah, um, okay. Dude has obviously never owned a pet. This article is junk science and not really up to the standards that should be required for this forum.

Regardless of his thesis, his evidence is woefully weak.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Extraordinary claims, he said, demand extraordinary evidence."

The single worst statement to happen to epistemology. Extraordinary claims require the same type of evidence as ordinary claims.

Ignoring for now the category problem of delineating extraordinary claims from ordinary ones, we find a deeper issue: It seems to be the case that asserting a certain category of truth-value statements require a different level of verification than another category is itself an extraordinary claim. Yet there is no extraordinary evidence that this claim is true. Hence the argument is self-referrentially absurd.

<comment><USER5> I disagree, the whole point of the statement is that ordinary claims don't require verifiable evidence because they're ordinary and we expect them to happen.

If I say it rained yesterday, my word is evidence enough to satisfy most inquires about the weather. If I say it rained and God reached down and protected me with his hand, well, I better have some serious evidence if I expect anyone with a rational mind to believe a word I'm saying.

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence is a well known and well accepted self evident fact.

<comment><USER3> _I disagree, the whole point of the statement is that ordinary claims don't require verifiable evidence because they're ordinary and we expect them to happen_

Therefore, popular opinion belays fact?

I get what you are saying but your counter argument is not the best. The parent seems to have a good point about the nature of evidence, to suggest that ordinary claims though should be accepted at face value because they are ordinary is the reason heavier than air vehicles could never fly, for instance.

<comment><USER5> No, popular and ordinary are entirely different things. Ordinary claims are ordinary because they are well proven and well known and don't need re- evaluated every time.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence precisely because because they haven't been proven. Claiming the Earth was round was at one time extraordinary, it no longer is. Claiming you met God however, is still an extraordinary claim and as such still requires extraordinary evidence.

Stating that the same level of proof is required for each one ignores the reality of the history of the claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "People tend to look out for people of like faith, as in churches, and that support can make them stronger, thus improving the chances that they will live long enough to see their genes passed along."

Its kind of a stretch as an argument. Common identity is what brings people together, thus enabling social support structures. If people are brought together by ideas, true or not, its because those ideas are core to identity.

Ideas themselves have their own selection criteria for being passed on - <http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MEMSELC.HTML>

If I were to re-phrase the thesis, it would be something like this - 'Humans have the ability to infer cause/effect relationships based on the most relevant information available. Often, the perceived relevancy of ideas is heavily influenced by ideas that are held to be true in present cultural belief system. Over time, as more information is available to the culture, there may be a disparity between observed information (facts) and cultural ideas (beliefs). In this scenario, relevancy of ideas will still be influenced by cultural ideas, sometimes to the point of necessitating the dismissal of observed information.'

</comment><comment><USER7> _Wolpert is an atheist, but he says he isn't trying to convert anyone to atheism. If so, he may be the only person on the planet who is willing to share his deeply held beliefs without caring whether he can convince anyone to believe the same way._

Atheism is a "deeply held belief" now? Learn something new every day..

<comment><USER8> As a Christian, let me just say I have met very ardent atheists...

Atheists can preach just as much as any other religion. Perhaps you are confusing the belief in NO god with simple indifference towards religion?

<comment><USER7> And I've met some very ardent math professors. Passion doesn't turn you into a believer.

There are layers of irony here.

<comment><USER7> Additionally, claiming X doesn't exist and not being able to prove it doesn't make you religious. Common counterexamples being X = invisible pink unicorns or spaghetti monsters.

It's a surprisingly simple concept, considering how few people get it. I wonder whether there's a more effective way to communicate it.

<comment><USER3> The issue though is that because a notion of god as existed as long as we have, writing it off as pink unicorns or spaghetti monsters belittle's it to a meaningless degree; it's a weak counter.

There is clearly something very human in a god belief. To suggest that this type of belief is simply a meaningless may in fact be correct, but it leaves a big part of the equation blank.

It's like answering math questions without showing your work. I think that's what reasonable people have issues with.

<comment><USER7> To be precise, I wasn't suggesting anything. I was arguing that those reasons for labeling atheism a belief are wrong.

To answer your post, I think the lack of evidence for all religions is a perfectly good counter. I think it shouldn't matter how long some idea has been around, or whether it appeals to our innate human instincts. But clearly both matter to a lot of people. As I'm not one of those people, I have no idea how to address this need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks for using the print version of the article. I was dreading having to wade through ads to get to the content

</comment><comment><USER10> > Why Do We Believe Impossible Things?

I don't.</comment>


Twitter airport bomb joker arrested - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10436629-71.html?tag=newsFeaturedBlogArea.0

<comment><USER2> This is old news but the guy got what he asked for.

It was like taking out a piece of bloody meat while diving surrounded by hungry sharks.

You know, being inside an airport is like being on their territory.</comment>


txeT Backward htiw snoitacifitoN s'rettiwT koopS ot woH - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@designuxui/how-to-spook-twitters-notifications-with-drawkcab-text-18e1ed53b6e

<comment><AUTHOR> :) Check out the URL here on HN, looks like the trick works here too.</comment>


Ask HN: What online course would you love to study online - <AUTHOR> Excluding technical subjects (statistics,technologies, etc.), what would you like to spend 50-ish hours learning  assuming the platform and course is good. <comment><USER2> chinese</comment>


Researchers find avenues for fraud in Square - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20088441-245/researchers-find-avenues-for-fraud-in-square/ <comment><USER2> To me this says more about credit card security being terrible than it does about square. After my credit card got skimmed a couple of times, I looked into how easy it is. For a few hundred bucks you get a magnetic strip reader / writer and you're in business cloning cards.

The hacks they mentioned:

\- Read data from a card with a square reader. Whoop dee doo... a square reader has to do that to process a transaction. They are just capturing that outside of the app?

\- Extract the cash from a gift card - Afaik, there's nothing nefarious about this. I had a gift card for $500... paid the processing fee to square and got the cash in my account. Great hack

\- Process a transaction without the physical card - You can do that already in square, it just costs you more.

It doesn't make it easier to commit fraud IN square. You still need a tax id / social security number to set up an account. And you need to have a bank account connected.

Really, what it makes it easier to do is to skim credit card numbers. And this is nothing to do with square and everything to do with credit card security.

</comment><comment><USER3> Since Square adapter interfaces with mobile devices using the audio input, the swipe basically produces a sound (corresponding to the credit card) that is fed to the mobile device. By recording and replaying the sound, the credit card transaction can be completed without swiping the card.

But that does not mean frauds exploit it easily.

Any one who has access to the credit card already has the credit card numbers and the security code. One could always use that information and order items online. But there are security mechanisms that protect such usage. The audio recording is identical to storing the credit card number. Square uses other mechanisms (like capturing location of each transaction) to deter fraud behavior.

</comment><comment><USER4> Title is bit misleading. Avenues for fraud are USING Square. The security flaw is IN the design of Credit Cards. It's clever that you can plug a Square into a tape-recorder, record a card and play it back to your iPhone. I don't think this is a flaw in Square, it's just the commoditization of credit card readers.

Even if Square used an encrypted dock-connector the magnetic reader is still the equivalent of a tape-reader head. The trick could still be done albeit with some light soldering.

</comment><comment><USER5> Square allows typed in or scanned info.

</comment><comment><USER6> Of course they do, they're trying to disrupt the company that's trying to disrupt the industry.</comment>


A brief, frivolous, but fairly accurate history of Money - <AUTHOR> http://lupoleboucher.livejournal.com/76418.html

<comment><USER2> > Money "going away" isn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it serves a > useful purpose. For one thing, when someone's money goes away, they tend to > go out and do more work, creating actual wealth in the form of economic > output, rather than parasitically living off of accumulated money. Inflation > is a form of money "going away." High interest rates are another form of it. > One of the reasons interest rates are at a historical low, is the minting of > credit money by banks like Bear Stearns. So, you can think of the choice as > shifting the price of volatility (or risk; yes, risk costs money -think > about it for a minute) from interest rates to banks. This sucks for guys who > work for the banks (me) which have to manage this risk, but otherwise, a > pretty good deal. Just like in the old days, the minting of credit money was > a choice between not having an economy based on money, and worrying that you > might wake up with worthless money.

Unless you're a banker or a government official, it's hard to agree with the writer that working hard in return for worthless paper is "not necessarily a bad thing" or that working hard and saving money in hopes of acquiring financial independence is "parasitically living off the accumulated money."

</comment><comment><USER3> From the comments: "Privacy is overrated. Most people who worry about privacy are compulsive masturbators who smoke too much dope. The rest are pedophiles."

Smart guy, maybe he can tour with Bush/Cheney on the speech circuit.

</comment><comment><USER4> do not feed the narcissist.</comment>


A collection of apps the 37signals team started using in the past year - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2714-a-collection-of-apps-the-37signals-team-started-using-in-the-past-year <comment><USER2> If you don't own apple products (iPhone, iPad, an Apple computer), this list will be pretty much useless to you unless you haven't heard of dropbox.

<comment><USER3> Just installed CardStar on my Droid X. Can finally dump the stupid little tags off my keychain (if It works). My device is most certainly not an Apple product.

<comment><USER4> Either I'm doing something wrong or barcode scanners and OLED screens don't get along. Can't get anything to scan the screen of my Nexus One.

<comment><USER3> Tried my Droid X at shoprite and it did not scan. Too bad. WOuld have been nice to eliminate those tags.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While I think the "look at the apps we're _not_ using" is a useful note, I don't think curiosity about these sorts of things is a matter of inadequate people going, "if only I used their tools..."

I just assume that those with more experience or prominence might have a better line on some useful tools I haven't come across or tried. Like Picasso said, "When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine."

</comment><comment><USER6> [Mac only]

Of that list, I'm pretty impressed with (and just bought) Divvy - it elegantly improves window resizing/moving options for Mac users.

<comment><USER7> Divvy also offers a Windows version

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wish 1password worked with Chrome. Looks handy.

<comment><USER9> Ask and ye shall receive: [http://help.agile.ws/1Password3/google_chrome_logins_bookmar...](http://help.agile.ws/1Password3/google_chrome_logins_bookmarklet.html)

<comment><USER10> Better yet: update to 1password 3.5 and get complete support through an extension.

<http://blog.agile.ws/1518190697/></comment></comment></comment>


Why Your Start-up Will Fail - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2007/09/24/yahoo-google-tivo-ent-manage-cx_ws_0924startupfailure.html An oft-cited study estimates that just two-thirds of all start-ups see their second birthdays, and less than half make it to their fourth.<p>Whatever the exact figures, no one would argue that scores of budding new ventures die on the vine. One of the most common killers: lack of focus. <comment><USER2> I read a lot of stuff by startup pundits. Obviously YC, but also rants by Joel Spolsky, Wil Shipley and others. Each offers something to the mix.

Sadly, I've never found anything of note in the writings of Wil Schroter. It mostly seems like a list of flaccid truisms. Has anyone else found nuggets of wisdom in there?

Read PG's stuff on Why Not Not to Start a Startup instead. Way more considered.

<comment><USER3> "Sadly, I've never found anything of note in the writings of Wil Schroter."

I was talking with a girl the other day who had confused him with Ben Casnocha, which I thought was pretty funny.

<comment><USER4> i don't know what's more sad, the fact that she thought I was ben casnocha or the fact that i'm less popular than ben casnocha.

<comment><USER3> I know Ben's writing has been accused of being trite, but isn't feeling sorry for his readers a bit harsh?

/joke

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hate "welcome" screens

<comment><USER6> Yes, the top two reasons why Forbes will fail are:

1\. a startup screen that smells strongly of 1998;

2\. that annoying sound which emerges faintly from your speakers as you read the article. It turns out that it's coming from the video ad that has been thoughtfully placed at the top of the screen to remind you, the reader, that you have just been linkbaited.

I hope for Forbes' sake that I accidentally _clicked_ on that video ad, because audible ads that play automatically are a harbinger of doom, like finding an angry black cat underneath your broken mirror.

<comment><USER7> I'm doing some screen-scraping type stuff right now, and Forbes has the nastiest HTML I've ever seen on a big site. I don't think it means they'll fail though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you looked at MySpace's html yet? Good luck with that...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Other reasons why startups fail:

Observations from 10 Months at a Startup: [http://www.tortoiseandachilles.com/2007/09/observations- from...](http://www.tortoiseandachilles.com/2007/09/observations- from-10-months-at-startup_03.html)

10 more reasons why web startups fail: [http://www.jroller.com/dscataglini/entry/5_more_reasons_why_...](http://www.jroller.com/dscataglini/entry/5_more_reasons_why_web)

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow, they're really milking that 12 ad a page slide-show aren't they?

</comment><comment><USER10> Graham's "how not to die" is closest to my mindset

</comment><comment><USER11> The startup fail for various reason but most common reasons are 1\. Idea: Bad idea, not a realistic idea etc. 2\. Time: Right idea but bad timing 3\. Team: Lacks of skills, confidence, collaboration within. 4\. Money: Too much or not enough money, unwise spending on marketing, PR, salaries etc. 5\. Focus: team is not focused on the idea 10000000000%.</comment>


Nicotine in Juul nearly identical to a Marlboro: study - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-juul-ecigarettes-study/addictive-nicotine-in-juul-nearly-identical-to-a-marlboro-study-idUSKBN1YL26R <comment><USER2> Well, yes. You don't need a study to prove the headline, the company itself owns patents in which it states that the goal of the product is to mimic the psychopharmacology of regular cigarettes. If the thing works like a cigarette it's no surprise at all that people would get as addicted as to regular cigarettes.</comment>


Show HN: A Chrome extension to encourage mindful behaviour on YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mindfultube-youtube-witho/gbgflbnpknldkjbbhmgbdalgjadgjfok <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, I made this because I often find myself spending longer on YouTube than I intended, forgetting what I came there for and winding up it rabbit holes of recommended videos.

This extension has helped me be more mindful and intentional in how I use YouTube and waste less time there. Ask away if you have any questions.</comment>


Researchers Make an Infrared-Invisible Tank That Would Fit Right Into Tron - <AUTHOR> http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2014/03/researchers-make-an-infrared-invisible-tank-that-would-fit-right-into-tron/

<comment><USER2> That's very cool! Where does all the heat go?

<comment><AUTHOR> A specialized infrared system takes heat readings from the tank's surroundings and then actively matches the tank's heat signature to map the terrain.

<comment><USER2> Doesn't the tank give off more IR than the surroundings? To decrease the light emitted, you have to decrease the black-body radiation in that spectrum below ambient temperature. That means actively cooling the surface, or (directly or indirectly) fluorescing the blackbody radiation into a different part of the spectrum.

<comment><AUTHOR> The PL-01 attempts its almost magical infrared signature reduction via the installation of temperature controlled wafers that blanket its exterior. This chameleon's skin of sorts, allows the tank's skin to match the infra-red signature of its surroundings. It does this by processing what small infrared sensors mounted around the tank detect, and then displays a pattern on the tank's honeycomb-like covering that best matches the infrared data collected.

As a result, the tank all but disappears to infrared sensors. Even more outstanding, these wafers can also be used like pixels, as each can be manipulated in temperature. This allows for the tank to use active infrared camouflage, such as tiger stiping its infrared signature in the jungle, or making it flat like the sand in the desert. The PL-01 also lowers its infrared signature through cooling and dispersing the exhaust from its 940 hp diesel engine.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are bots just a hype? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
Everyone seems to be crazy over bots, but I want to know your opinion about this.
Are these bot's just having a hype time?
I know bots can be good for existing businesses to communicate with their users.
But can a new service be brought to life starting as a bot? Is it the next generation of apps?
Anyone who has made a bot and seeing success from it? if so what problems have you guys came across in making, distributing your bot.
What's HN opinion about this? <comment><USER2> Pure Chat Bots or more correctly ICR (Interactive Chat Response) systems are a niche UI for a limited number of use cases.

The more interesting is the App-in-an-App concept and Android Instant Apps.

But experimenting with the new types of UI is a good thing.

I predict that all those experiments with chat bots will lead to the adoption of Multi-modal interfaces (integrated GUI, menus, chat, voice, VR, etc.)

Eventually we'll switch to Neural interfaces using brain-implantable chips.

Currently the advantage of chat bots, that they are much easier and cheaper to prototype and develop than web or native apps. The agency will charge you $50K for a high-quality native app, but only $5K for the same quality and functionality chat bot.

Another advantage is the free distribution channels: Skype, FB Messenger, Telegram, Slack, Kik, WhatsApp, etc.

If you plan to build a platform or another bot enabling technology, you already late to the party.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bots are not hype. I see a problem with building a business with bots. Someone else controls the platform: the users belong to that business first and a bot based business second. Twitter, Facebook, iOS all had early movers building businesses at the pleasure of the platform owner only to later have their products obsoleted by policy changes. There's nothing in the business model of bots that's any different.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> The business people certainly seems to think bots are the "next big thing".

We had a similar but smaller hype in customer support chatbots around y2k, which sort of died out when the tech did not meet the expectations.

This time around, however, it seems to me the tech has matured enough to actually survive the hype.

(I used to work building chat bots for several mid-large business around 2000-2002)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yah true I also think bots have a potential to change the way users deal with businesses.

But as some say bots will replace apps. But can we have a time where bot first? I mean is there a potential for bots to work with end users instead of used by companies like Instagram and Snapchat?

<comment><USER4> Yea, personally I am excited to see what will come out of the Siri developers kit that was announced this week.

I do not understand how/why bots would replace apps. Perhaps I am narrow- minded about this, but personally I prefer to stay in (some) control of my devices and work-flow.

Cloud based bots are a sad situation, where end user is getting further out of control. But it doesn't have to be like this. Check out [https://mycroft.ai/](https://mycroft.ai/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Language is the most natural human UI for giving complex instructions. Software hasn't caught up yet. Bots will be big when the software has caught up (and lots of big companies see this as happening soon).</comment>


Vorpal: a new way to make CLI apps - <AUTHOR> http://vorpal.js.org <comment><USER2> How is it any new? Readline could do almost all that (barring line tokenization) for decades.</comment>


Ask HN: How can an outsider make connections in the startup world? - <AUTHOR>

I know Python very well but don't have any real experience with Django.  I'm looking to move to the San Francisco area but don't have any connections.  How do I go about making connections with companies that are willing to hire someone like me?
My email is in my profile if anyone wants to contact me.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> First of all, knowing python just ain't enough. You really should acquire some useful skills for the real world such as expanding on your python knowledge and learning the django environment. Secondly, technology conferences and hackathons are great events to meet people and find potential employers. It's the survival of the fittest here, so make sure that you're fit and good at what you do before you make your move to SF. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm plenty fit, and have real world experience; I'm just lacking experience with Django. Good developers can learn any technology quickly, and I'm one of them.

I'm working on remedying my Django deficiencies, but I don't have months and months to work on it. Unfortunately, nor do I really have the ability to travel all over the country to conferences and hackathons, so I need to make what I do count.

Thanks. :)</comment></comment>


FTC halts domain-name registration scam - <AUTHOR> http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=57E6E46F-1A64-6A71-CEE3C72441F755CD <comment><USER2> How embarrassing that this is a Canadian export. I got one of these things in the mail (from "Domain Registry of Canada", cunningly decorated with a red- and-white icon to look vaguely governmental). It was so well done that it took me a few minutes to figure out that it was bullshit. I was so angry that I wrote to the Canadian Internet Registration Authority to complain, not so much on my own behalf as for all the non-technical website owners out there who don't stand a chance of figuring out that they're being hoodwinked into transferring their registration over to crooks at 3-4 times market rate. The agency wrote me back saying "unfortunately" the scammers weren't technically registrars -- whatever that means -- but that they thanked me for my complaint and would add it to their pile.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why can't they stop _Domain Registry of America_ then?

(who also strangely started in Canada and then relocated)

<comment><USER4> I get these in Australia...

It must work a reasonable amount of the time, otherwise the international postage wouldn't be worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> When are they going to do anything about domain kiting, then?

<comment><USER6> I was under the impression that the nonrefundable ICANN fee drastically reduced kiting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> what, and they only had to pay back $10,000 of the millions of dollars they took?

<comment><USER8> My thought as well.

So, blow through about $4.3 million in money from your scam, pay back $10k, and oh, they can't scam people using the scam they used that was already illegal.

I'm seriously in the wrong business, with the wrong ethics.</comment></comment>


Git Magic - <AUTHOR> http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~blynn/gitmagic/ <comment><USER2> I can't help but think "Does source control matter _that_ much in a startup".

I can see why git may be much better than svn for large groups of developers, but is git really that much better for small groups? Are people really spending much time on revision control?

<comment><USER3> I'm about to switch from svn to git, and I'm hoping it'll make a difference. My webapp has been released a while now and here's how I'm hoping git will help my release cycle:

I don't like / use svn's branching support. So, after every release I'm reluctant to start any major development. What if I've pulled the guts out of my app, and a critical bug is discovered?

Clearly not a problem if I have either a stable branch that I can apply the bug fix to, or a branch for whatever major feature I'm working on.

It's quite possible that this is my shortcoming and has nothing to do with svn vs git. But, if switching to git (which seems to have great branching support) is what it takes for me to adopt a better practice then I'm for it.

Anyway, I think SCM is a major part of _running_ a software startup. It has too much of an effect on operations not to be important.

<comment><USER4> I love svn's branching support. I always work in new branches and then merge them back to trunk. I never have trunk anything but what is 100% working and deployed, and then branches can be in any shape. This way you aren't afraid to check in code.</comment></comment></comment>


I've lost interest in myself - <AUTHOR>

How does one find motivation? Slowly over the past few months I've lost the drive to learn, to try to achieve. I'm not suicidal, all I have the desire to do is lounge, read reddit, and watch netflix. I feel as if this is wrong, that I want to move forward not backwards. I want to WANT to study and improve. Any advice HN? <comment><USER2> I recommend exercise.

Best to combine this with starting something new. Take up jogging, swimming, martial arts, yoga, ultimate --- whatever sounds interesting that you've never tried before.

</comment><comment><USER3> These things are not unique and certainly you are not the only one who has faces them. I can recall three to five times when I had completely lost the vibe about programming, it become just an obligation for my job. I found it hard to even look at code in my free time.

Fast forward few weeks, I started reading specs of MP3 format and created a reader of ID3 tag in PHP[1] and I am back to normal, the obsession about coding is back as it.

As @serji tells, find something new, try to create something about it and its just matter of some time when your passion will be back as usual. Good luck.

[1]: [https://github.com/shubhamjain/PHP- ID3](https://github.com/shubhamjain/PHP-ID3)

<comment><USER4> This excerpt[1] from "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman" comes to mind. Detailing a stage where Feynman lost his passion for physics and regained it by studying things purely for the satisfaction of his curiousity and the enjoyment of the process.

      He says, "Feynman, that's pretty interesting, but what's the importance of it?"
      "Why are you doing it?"

      "Hah!" I say.
      "There's no importance whatsoever. I'm just doing it for the fun of it."

[1]: [http://www.physics.ohio- state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html](http://www.physics.ohio- state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> i feel like I have these Moments at a quaterly pace. This is strange to me too. I start out in a yea hacking and working on things like a crazy person. Then a month or 2 later I slouch. After I'm full of that too I restart the engine and start working. This apparently correlates heavily with the months in which I use google. The ones where I am actively working on something are the ones where I search for stuff the most. If this is the first time relax It'll go away again.

// aside: Since my Family lives in a less densely populated area with poor connectivity, I found it a perfect distraction-free zone to get back in a productive mood. I have probably started reading into 1 new programming language (Python) and got fairly productive in it already. Started reading into Scheduling in CompSci. And maybe have already decided on my next to be learned language(erlang maybe). The Bad connectivity may be easy to replicate. Just pull the plug or work via 3G. Surely makes you feel like you have time to read something

So. Heads Up! It will come back :)

</comment><comment><USER6> One can easily find motivation in commitment. If you commit to learning something, (as an example; by investing money in it) then you would be more likely to be motivated as you would not want your money to go to waste.

Think of your time as money, as personal self-development. Also, lower your goals when you start out. If you fail to achieve a certain goal at a certain time that you expected to, you'll be frustrated, and it is this kind of frustration that is a demotivator. By avoiding frustrations, you're optimizing your ability to remain motivated.

As an idea of lowering your goals, try this: Instead of trying to achieve, simply try to be productive. You can still have Netflix on in the background while you work. Once you've reached a consistent productivity level, then try to learn more, but don't just read - work while you learn. Then begin trying to achieve.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've yet to solve the problem once and for all, but so far, in no particular order:

\- Take a vitamin B pill (B12 mainly) and/or a 5-HTP supplement.

\- Keep lots of interesting books lying around, without making a goal out of reading them.

\- Watch inspiring personal struggle/triumph documentaries to regain optimism (the one about Bo Jackson might still be on netflix).

\- Practice identifying, avoiding, and moving past Gumption Traps.

\- Become an armchair 'expert' in something (at the time) useless and non- achievement-related, like overhead valve engines, pre-Renaissance cathedral construction, friction stir welding (do _not_ get caught up configuring your text editor)

There's a method to the madness in mixing these. Everything in moderation, ymmv, etc.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Reading the comments all of you have written has made me very excited as all of you have neat and helpful ideas. Perhaps the best motivator is hearing a bit of advice and receiving support from a wonderful community!

I've added reading the Holstee Manifesto to my morning ritual, what a neat poster Alias1. Feynman is a personal hero and his desire to do what is "fun" is a great motivator, thanks jayrobin. Misiek, my girlfriend would love it if we had a child, though I suspect there a few steps before that happens...

Thanks again HN, I look forward to hear more from all of you!

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm a programmer, and a lot of times I'm deciding what to do...read, watch movies, watch netflix.

I also _want_ to improve all the time, and I also want to work on my side projects, but I don't always feel motivated.

I've found the best way, typically, is to watch or read something interesting about programming. Lately, "Clean Code" is a bit inspirational, or talks from pycon on pyvideo. It's enough motivation to get me started, and getting started keeps me going, for those few hours at least.

Rinse, repeat.

</comment><comment><USER9> Don't give up. Motivation is a skill that can be trained like a muscle. Don't be afraid to make mistakes but never do the same mistake twice. Learn from other's mistakes. Exercise, I recommed martial arts. Read interesting books and watch good movies - start with [http://www.imdb.com/chart/top](http://www.imdb.com/chart/top). Eat dark chocolate and drink a glass of wine (or beer) every day. Fall in love. Start a family, have a baby.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm like this currently, but not willingly. You can take supplements to get your motivation back (like Pramiracetam), or you can find something you are interested in. Watch a good movie, read a good book, talk to the right person, then write about it, or use it to fuel something you think is worth doing. Are you sure you didn't need some time off? Either way, you should kick the habit before it drags on too long, because it'll become ingrained hard to move on from.

</comment><comment><USER11> My tl;dr

* Listen to music to block the distractions/world

* Get out of your old environment (coffee shops seem to help me, +caffeine source!)

* Travel: It just always seems to put things in perspective for me.

* Probably won't work for everyone, but I tend to have 'The Holstee Manifesto' on the wall near my computer, and probably read through it a few times a week. Makes you think.

</comment><comment><USER12> 1\. As someone said, do something that is out of your current routine to reset your system.(Go for a run, Stand in line at the DMV or post office, etc).

2\. Find an actionable & useful project that you've to code/build at least for an hr where you see tangible progress. Allow that progress to motivate you so that you start spending more time on that.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've faced these kind of issues in the past and am currently developing a course for programmers that can help with this. It will be launched this week. If you are interested, please email me and I'll notify you when it's available so you can check it out.

</comment><comment><USER14> Solve real problems, not the ones you create in your head. I recommend traveling and explore the world, then you will see real problems. I've read many stories of people finding good ammount of reasons to fight for.

</comment><comment><USER15> Step one: get out of your environment. Your brain has become addicted to responding certain ways based on your surroundings. There are some lines of thought you physically can't have when you're stuck like that.

Step two: be in places where you feel you are wasting your time. Get stuck in traffic for hours. Go to some family event where everything is trivial and people talk for hours about how obamacare is destroying america. Get your brain to start wishing, "I don't want to be here wasting my life on trivial bullcrap -- I want to be doing something important with my time."

Step three: when you get back into your brain-stuck environment, DO NOT START doing what you did before. DO NOT open reddit (block it in your hosts file or run dnsmasq and block (asterisk)reddit(asterisk) hosts and (asterisk)ycomb(asterisk)). DO NOT turn on a tv show or a movie. Once you _start_ your old habit, you lose. You won't have a chance to stop yourself until you go through another sleep/wake cycle. You _are_ allowed to turn on music.

Step four: start something _new_. you wanna be starting something. Find something you can't do, and figure out why. Do you know how a webpage is delivered from server to browser? When was the last time you wrote a BST? Just start doing _something_ that requires thought and potentially creativity on your part. Things will fall into place after that.

But, for the love of Tony Robbins, DO NOT START your old habits. DO NOT open reddit. DO NOT watch a tv show or movie at your computer. Once you _start_ you become unable to stop until your brain resets.

</comment><comment><USER16> Take a vacation.

</comment><comment><USER17> Get a job.</comment>


How big oil will die - <AUTHOR> https://shift.newco.co/amp/p/38b843bd4fe0 <comment><USER2> Discussion from a month ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14715405)

<comment><USER3> Seems this was post was buried. Was the repost the reason? Or the flaming? Energy discussion not interesting to YC?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Every time I see someone make the argument that "all cars will be electric by 20XX" I feel like they are incredibly sheltered from rural life. The US is HUGE! Sure the majority of commuting could be replaced by electric cars but I've seen no evidence of them being able to replace ICEs for the "I want to go skiing/kayaking/hiking (pick an activity where your car sits on the side of the road all day) 2 hours away and return on the same day" situation. There are so many changes to infrastructure that need to be made to get there. Sure ski resorts and malls and park and rides might put in 1000s of chargers in their parking lots eventually, but it certainly won't happen by 2023 or whatever this article predicts. Sure the cars might exist, but the charging infrastructure won't by then.

<comment><USER5> Electric cars can have ICE's strapped onto them, and it works really well. The Chevy Volt, for instance, is perfectly designed to handle the situation you described. It gives you 52ish miles of all electric range, so you can commute and grab groceries and do all of your normal driving on pure electricity. And for various road trips, it still gets 40-ish MPG for hundreds of miles without any electricity needed.

It also needs zero fancy charging infrastructure. Have a regular US household power outlet anywhere in your garage or home exterior? Then you have everything you need to charge it up every night.

We could easily eliminate 50+% of US personal vehicle emissions, simply by putting 2013-era PHEV technology into every single car /SUV / truck, and getting people to plug them into regular 120V US household outlets overnight. Even rural folks would benefit greatly from getting 1 or 2 free "electricity gallons" every night.

Pure EV's are obviously ideal, and way cooler. But even just a little bit of electricity in a PHEV goes a _long_ way to reducing/eliminating emissions.

<comment><USER6> > It also needs zero fancy charging infrastructure. Have a regular US > household power outlet anywhere in your garage or home exterior? Then you > have everything you need to charge it up every night.

There will be significant additional load on the Electric grid. This will require the electric grid to be overhauled around the country. Couple this with "smart grid" mandates & you have yet another channel for government control via bureaucracy & regulation. Denizens of cities tend to be more numb to government control & people in more sparsely populated areas tend to be more willing to demand/defend freedom & liberty.

There are many new properties that need to add utility poles. Don't forget power loss over distance.

The big advantage of Gas is you can transport/store the product without the product losing energy.

> We could easily eliminate 50+% of US personal vehicle emissions, simply by > putting 2013-era PHEV technology into every single car /SUV / truck, and > getting people to plug them into regular 120V US household outlets > overnight. Even rural folks would benefit greatly from getting 1 or 2 free > "electricity gallons" every night.

Living in Tennessee, it's difficult to ignore the power lines everywhere in otherwise abundant greenery. Electric cars will only add more power lines & infrastructure.

<comment><USER5> > There will be significant additional load on the Electric grid. This will > require the electric grid to be overhauled around the country.

Two electric cars in a household, both charging simultaneously, uses less electricity combined than just one standard clothes dryer or one central air conditioner -- the kind of appliances everyone already has in their home and runs regularly.

It's not nothing of course. And some parts of the grid will need capacity improvements. But we're only talking about 900 to 1400 watts per car here, and most of that only happening at night when there's lots of spare capacity already. I don't see any factual reasons this would crush the power grid -- cars simply don't use enough electricity to cause a major problem.

<comment><USER7> 1400 watts for a plug in hybrid or someone that doesn't drive longer distances everyday.

For full electric with higher mileage 5,000-10,000 watts would be a lot more likely (Tesla sells a 17 KW charger).

<comment><USER5> > For full electric with higher mileage 5000-10,000 kilowatts would be a lot > more likely.

I don't think so. Sure, it's technically possible to use that much power, but most people aren't going to empty their Tesla battery every single day, for the same reason most people don't buy a whole tank of gasoline every single day.

You can charge a Tesla on a 1.4kw US household outlet, just like every other car. It will still give you 50+ miles a night. Bump that to just a 3.3kW charger and you'll be pulling over 100 miles of charge nightly. 3.3kW is more than enough to cover 92% of all commuters nationwide, according to USDOT.

Superchargers are awesome and all, and are great for roadtrips, but 99% of people will have no need to pull 17kW down in their home. That's an insane amount of power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good. Bloomberg estimates the transition will be a $10 trillion upside for those upgrading and replacing fossils[1].

It remains to be seen who the winners will be. Incumbents (Excelon, Shell, SA, etc.) have market share, but will have to strand trillions of assets and reserves. Newcomers (Tesla, etc.) have to survive the energy boom-bust cycle that early fossil went through.

My money is on the newcomers (my startup is one). The incumbents' shareholders simply won't let them strand assets short term to transition to new energy business models.

[1]: [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/investing...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-16/investing- trillions-in-electricity-s-sunny-future)

<comment><USER8> can you link to or provide a little more info on the "boom-bust cycle that early fossil went through"?

<comment><USER3> Here's a recent example with the shale boom-bust:

[http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2015/11/04/boom-to- bust-5...](http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2015/11/04/boom-to- bust-5-stages-of-the-oil-industry/)

This is extremely typical in the history of energy (wood, coal, oil, solar, nuclear, wind, and on and on) because of the speed at which things move. First, you come up with a new innovation, pump capital into building tons of it (the boom). Then, someone else comes up with an innovation, which busts you.

It's fundamentally impossible to defend an advantage/monopoly long term in energy (except with governments, e.g. utilities). Coincidentally, this is why we don't see much VC participation in energy, and when they do participate, they usually lose their shirt. The competitive fundamentals of energy aren't compatible with monopoly seeking.

<comment><USER9> >> It's fundamentally impossible to defend an advantage/monopoly long term in energy (except with governments, e.g. utilities)

I'd argue the causal factors here are more attributable to a combination of natural forces in quasi-free market economies (e.g. competition) and antitrust laws than the specific economics of the energy industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can see this playing out, but not as quickly as the author suggests. Cameras and cellphones last a couple years at the most, and are much easier to replace, than a car is. Sure, everyone _wants_ a self driving car, but not everyone can switch just like that.

<comment><USER11> The argument that counters this is that hailed rides will be cheaper than driving what you already have. You don't need to make a new purchase to switch.

Even if you have a recent model sitting in the driveway, you may choose to save money by hailing a car rather than driving your own.

I don't know if it'll play out like that, but the article is pretty convincing.

<comment><USER12> Why would a car owned by someone else be cheaper than the same car owned by you?

The obvious answer - dividing the cost of the car over more miles - doesn't seem right to me. Driving more miles doesn't generally increase the useful mileage lifespan of cars, it just wears them out more quickly.

<comment><USER13> Even in the short term, an owner of a large (say 10k+) fleet of cars has a lot of opportunities to drive down cost per car that is not available to an average costumer:

\- a guaranteed purchase of 10k cars will get a significant discount over retail price

\- not paying dealer overhead

\- buying gas (or electricity) in bulk will be cheaper than retail price

\- in-house repairs and maintenance will be cheaper

\- a lot of people buy on credit, which is expensive. A fleet operator will be able to get cheaper funding (e.g. free by doing an IPO) and eventually fund purchases fully from profit

\- an average customer is influenced by marketing and therefore over-pays for non-essential items. A fleet buyer will be ruthless about maintaining best- bang-for-the-buck ratio.

In the longer term fleet operator will transition fully to electric, build its own electricity generation capacity (especially in sunny states like texas or ca, where solar is really cheap), use data from past repairs to drive up reliability and durability of the cars etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article makes a number of flawed assumptions:

        - It neglects the environmental impact of battery production.
        - Diesel motors can be significantly less expensive to maintain and operate, even more so as the reliability of
          emissions-reducing technology is improved.
        - Battery charging is nowhere near as fast or convenient as a gas station.
        - Electricity must come from somewhere.  Few places have steady wind and none have 24-hour solar energy.

The world will switch to electric vehicles when they offer sufficient cost- savings, convenience, and appeal. Until we solve all of those things (and not with massive government subsidies), they will continue to play second-fiddle to gas- and diesel-powered vehicles.

<comment><USER15> > Diesel motors can be significantly less expensive to maintain and operate, > even more so as the reliability of emissions-reducing technology is > improved.

Source? As someone who owns two diesels(1.1L 2cyl and 3.0L 6cyl) and an EV the oil changes alone make your argument invalid.

You know what my highest per-mile operating cost is(including electricity)? Tires.

Look, I love the simplicity of the diesel as much as anyone else but EVs have a very strong position on operation costs.

<comment><USER14> When were your diesels built? The new (last five years or so) engines are amazing--they've really come a long way with the emissions systems.

I own two diesels: a 1987 Land Rover Defender 110 with a 300Tdi (no emissions controls, ridiculously smokey) and a 2017 Ram 2500 with the 6.7L Cummins turbo diesel (cleaner than I'd ever imagined).

<comment><USER15> I think you may have mis-read my reply. I was talking about operating costs, not emissions.

The 3.0L ecodiesel was built last year and yeah, it's much cleaner than our '81 1.2L which is pre-emissions.

The thing is the new engine is full synthetic(only approved oil) so combined with the ~$30 Wix filter an oil change runs ~$110 every 4k. The only maintenance item on our EV was a coolant change at 50k, something you'd have to do on a diesel as well.

<comment><USER14> That's a different story than my Cummins, which gets an oil change every 15K miles and uses regular 15W40 dino oil. Other than fuel[1], I've only spent about $115 in the first year of ownership and only because I took it to the dealer for an oil change instead of doing it in my garage like I do my other diesel truck.

[1] 15-17mpg...not bad for a 10,500 pound truck

<comment><USER15> Even ignoring the oil change(15k seems like a huge interval, 5x what I did on traditional oil) you're still spending ~$0.17 per mile @ $2.80/gal.

For our 5k lb EV right now I'm paying $0.07KWh at about .3KW/ mi for a total of $0.023/mi(hence why tires cost me more than electricity, they're about $1k/35k mi or 0.028/mi).

Even our Ecodiesel that gets 28MPG still costs almost 10x to run per mile compared to our EV(which has similar weight) before you even factor oil changes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Pardon my coarseness, but the author has his head so far up his own ass as he can't tell whether the sun is up or down. I say this as a person who ordered a Nissan Leaf the first day they were available, has way too many shares of TSLA in their portfolio, and would love nothing more than watch Exxon Mobile go out of business. But they won't be dismantling the Keystone pipeline any time soon, let alone in eight years.

Sure, ICEs are complex. But it is a _known_ complexity. So well known that our 80K Scion xB has never had the valve cover off (IOW, nothing internal to the engine has broken). In fact, we've done nothing to it but tires and oil. Having never done it, from the shop manual I'd guess I could have the engine of our 200K mile VW camper van on the ground in about 30 minutes, have it rebuild over a weekend, and it's good for another 100K miles. Complicated though they might be, ordinary humans can figure them out. Hell, the inner workings of an Intel CPU surpassed my understanding years ago, but they still sell millions of them, and my ignorance doesn't stop me from writing software for them.

Look at the list of common repairs in the article. Almost all of them have one thing in common: the repairs are dictated by emissions testing, not because they'll leave you at the side of the road. O2 sensor? The car is likely to still run, just poorly. The driver might not even notice. Catalytic converter? Unless it's plugged from flooding the engine (raw gas will plug a cat), the car will still run. And yada yada for the rest. Of the items on the list, only an ignition coil is going to leave you at the side of the road. Let me put another way: I like our old VW because it gives an opportunity to still work on cars once in a while. The rest of our vehicles, modern cars and motorcycles all, are fucking appliances that don't need the tender care of an old mechanic. So let's discard the "ICE cars are complex and unreliable" argument, shall we? And there's more to the ICE world than passenger cars, as you won't be plowing a field with an electric tractor anytime soon.

Using a Prius as an argument for EVs is just dumb, because you know what else a Prius has under the hood beside an electric motor? So the more one makes the case with the longevity of a Prius, the more one argues that ICEs are pretty reliable.

By the time I got to the self-driving car portion, I checked out. In six years, new car sales will drop to near zero? That's not an argument worth having, because you're arguing with a kook.

</comment><comment><USER17> There are a few problems yet to be solved. First, the battery system in a Tesla Model S has a carbon footprint from manufacturing that equals driving a midsized gasoline powered car for 8 years. If that doesn't change, then there is no net carbon reductions Second, battery energy density needs to get dramatically better. Current Li-Ion batteries are about 6 times the energy density of a lead-acid battery of 40 years ago. They need to get 20 times better to equal a hydrocarbon fuel. Third, the increase in electricity demand has to come from somewhere. It isn't viable to replace all electricity generation with wind/solar, without MASSIVE storage investment. Hydroelectric and nuclear will be needed at large scale to cover this demand if coal and gas are not used. While everyone talks about these technologies getting better at the same rate computers did, they haven't thus far. They might, but the laws of thermodynamics are a steep slope.

</comment><comment><USER18> The OP is operating in a peacetime mentality. Oil's killer app is war:

Can a fleet of fighter planes run on electricity, currently? No.

Has the Army committed to having 100% of their fleet of tanks running on electricity by 2025? No.

Can you run a supply chain to the front lines of a ground war with electricity? Technically yes, but it's only a matter of time until your wire infra gets cut/bombed.

So I completely agree with the OP, assuming a general absence of armed, land- based conflict in the next 20 years.

That said, think about why the US even _has_ a highway system and domestic airlines. There are two main weaknesses of building transportation infrastructure on rail, from a central-planning perspective:

1\. You can shut down an entire country's economy by bombing the rail infrastructure (c.f. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman%27s_March_to_the_Sea), viewing the seceded South as a "country" here...), less so with airfields and asphalt highways.

2\. There is no consistent demand for continued production of railroad infrastructure, once it is built, which makes mobilizing production in times of great need (e.g. war) slow and difficult.

How this relates to the OP's argument re: electric cars:

1\. While battery technology will continue to improve, the main means of transporting electricity is still the power plant + electric lines, which is relatively fragile compared to oil barges/tanks on trucks + highways. You would need to destroy every oil tanker and truck in America to shut down the energy distribution system -- a much harder task than bombing every power plant -- power plants can't move.

2\. With gas-powered cars (and planes, though to a lesser extent), you can keep the production running all the time making civilian vehicles. Turning all those Ford F150s and 737s into tanks and bombers is difficult, but it is way easier to do so if you don't have to build the factories FIRST.

<comment><USER19> >Can a fleet of fighter planes run on electricity, currently? No. >Can you run a supply chain to the front lines of a ground war with electricity? Yes, with cheap solar power and favorable weather condition(alternatively recharge locations which would recharge or repair drones.) Solar powered drones would be more cost-effective than oil-based armies. Air/ground units greatest cost is protection of humans inside, making them expensive and energy hungry. Once the human factor is out, there is no point on being dependent on dense energy sources such as oil or static infrastructure such as rails and roads. The ideal fighting unit is cheap and self-sufficient: something like solar-powered aerial drone armed with particle beam weapon(e.g.ion beam) or area-denial beam weapon powered by wind/solar/hydro. Renewable energy is the future of warfare, like it or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I did some quick maths and at 16 cents per mile this looks like it would make around 500bn in revenue per year if all journeys in America were converted to electric self driving uber over night! Maybe Uber will succeed after all!

</comment><comment> chao- I want fewer fossil fuels as much as the next guy, and while the core argument about ICEs is beyond my expertise, the data the author presents seems to support it so that's pretty neat. However, I take issue with the article's casual conflating of oil with all fossil fuels, and fossil fuels used for transportation with all uses of fossil fuels.

It signals a lack of awareness when the author writes things such as:

> _The pipeline was built at a cost of about $7 billion ... Keystone XL will > go down as the world's last great fossil fuels infrastructure project._

Without even straining my memory, I recall that Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass Terminal opened in the last year. It cost about as much to build as the $7 billion quoted here, and they are planning another now at a higher projected cost [0].

Overall I agree with the author's proposed trajectory and order of events involving self-driving cars, fewer used car sales, and so on, but differ on the time scale. I figure things will progress at one-half to three-quarters that speed, at fastest. I don't think the "simple" argument of "people will select the cheaper option" is as simple when it comes to automobiles. A combination of inertia, identity and utility are going to make it slow going.

Not only am I "not a car guy", I actively dislike the task of driving. So it took a long time for me to _really get_ why people identify with their vehicles, but now that I do, I can see how limited my eco-progressive perspective of "Everyone would prefer to live a car free life just like me!" was. I still arrogantly think everyone else will come around, but it's going to take longer than the author, or younger me, thought it would.

Definitely the generation born after the self-driving car is widespread will be the ones to complete the job. I don't think that timeline plays as cleanly into the oil (or fossil fuel) narrative that this article sets up, though.

[0] [http://wgno.com/2016/12/21/8-5-billion-natural-gas-plant- and...](http://wgno.com/2016/12/21/8-5-billion-natural-gas-plant-and-terminal- planned-for-plaquemines-parish/)

<comment><USER21> And of course there's people like myself -- I _love_ cars, but I actively hate commuting. Not because I mind the driving, or the traffic, but because it's time I'm getting nothing done.

If I lived in or near a bigger city, some of that would be offset by mass transit, but even mass transit comes with a lot of wasted time -- walking to the platform, waiting for the train, driving/walking to the station, what have you. But a self-driving car, or a car I can call on-demand solves all of that. I can walk out of my house, get into a car, and read, catch up on email, or get work done during my commute.

I'll probably still have a car for leisure. I currently have a Jeep that I use for wilderness / beach / outdoor trips, and I can't see that changing any time soon even though I have a gas-electric hybrid for commuting, but if my daily transit needs can be met by a self-driving, plug-in electric, it's a massive ecological benefit while actively increasing my daily productivity and quality of life.

I agree with you that the 100% coverage the author imagines is a LONG, long way off, and I imagine that even of people who feel more like you do, the idea that they're going to start replacing perfectly good cars with expensive replacements is unlikely outside of the top 10-20% of earners, but if enough people like me switch over a significant portion of our driving patterns to those described in the article, it'll be a huge win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Talking to people behind self driving car companies the issue is not the self driving technology or laws it's more infrastructure around extremely low latency internet to make self driving cars work in the general wild. This article assumes mass adoption really quickly but who knows how quickly our general infrastructure will be updated to enable this especially in third world countries that are ramping up in traditional cars consumption but are notorious for bad mass scale infrastructure (Brazil/ India).

<comment><USER23> Why would the internet be involved in anything a self-driving car computes with a sub-five-second deadline?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> First of all, over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport; second, it's gonna take quite a bit longer than this article predicts for oil used in transport to ramp down.

<comment><USER25> > over a quarter of oil is used for things other than transport

But doesn't transport have the biggest need for power density? Once renewable power density is solved for transport, I would expect the same applications will quickly be applied to the other places oil is used

<comment><USER26> it is used as a precursor in chemical synthesis, plastics and a variety of other products.

you're not going to replace that with solar.

<comment><USER3> Sure you will, but maybe later. Super cheap energy makes bio-plastics competitive.

Massive solar farms passively making carbon chains when the sun is up. The reason no one is talking about it is that the transportation transition is lower hanging fruit.

<comment><USER27> There is an interesting line of research into catalysts that use electricity to create stuff like methanol, acetic acid, etc from CO2 and water. Often when you see people comment on this they automatically assume synthetic methanol --> green washed automotive fuel --> yay and I can keep my F150 pickup. But more seriously, pure low weight hydrocarbons --> chemical feed stocks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> There is a major blind spot that the author fails to address: All vehicles (ICE or EV) have a heavy dependence on petroleum products such as plastics, lubricants, and synthetic rubber. While I believe that EV's are the future, I do not think their success implies the fall of Big Oil.

<comment><USER29> The amounts differ by an order of magnitude, or maybe even two. E.g. the EIA says 9.3k barrels/day is consumed as motor gasoline (more than half of all consumption of finished products, and the next largest categories are also burn-the-oil, possibly including 3.6k barrels/day of diesel fuel) whereas only 323 barrels/day go to petrochemical feedstocks. [https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.h...](https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbblpd_a.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Why self driving cars should only be electric vehicules? And if the price of oil is going down due to electric vehicules it will make people even more happier to use their already amortized vehicules. And don't forget that a large part of electricity comes from oil in the US.

<comment><USER31> > And don't forget that a large part of electricity comes from oil in the US.

Unless you live in Hawaii this is false.

Coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar are collectively and individually larger contributors than oil.

[https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> OP does not understand that he is far more enthusiastic about his Prius than the rest of the world.

Too much of this article is based on unsubstantiated, overly optimistic predictions, and the reasoning is regularly fallacious. Two examples:

1\. OP lists expensive repairs for combustion vehicles, then suggests that because said parts do not exist in EVs, that EVs are cheaper to maintain. This is nonsense, first of all most of the parts listed almost never require repairs (how often do you spend >$1000 to replace a catalytic converter?) and secondly, it is (deliberately?) misleading to ignore that EVs have specialized parts of their own to repair. The fact that there are fewer parts is not enough data to suggest that an EV is cheaper automatically to maintain, or more reliable. Further, there is a risk that some people will spend more money on EV repair because they may require specialized equipment to maintain.

2\. His "current estimates" sources are based on extrapolation of current tesla battery performance, which is an uncertain predictor of future performance given how little time the tested batteries have spent in use.

3\. When OP leaps to self driving cars as another reason for the emergence of EVs, he also conveniently misses that there is utility and sentimental value in owning your own car.

tl;dr: Will EVs eventually supersede ICVs? Sure. But putting out an article which says with certainty, and a straight face, that no one will want oil in 8 years is just unnecessarily smug.

<comment><USER33> It's funny that you claim that "most of the parts listed almost never require repairs" when the list explicitly is the top 10 most frequent actual repairs that were performed in 2015.

Also "they may require specialized equipment to maintain" is a guess that's not true, while everything requires particular tools, repairing and maintaining electric drivetrains requires less specialized equipment than ICEs.

<comment><USER32> From that same article, the average repair cost is $387/year for a typical vehicle. Nowhere near the scary list with >$1000. You feel right into OP's literary trap, which is my problem with the whole article. Overly optimistic sensationalism. 8 years to rebuild our entire infrastructure!

I'd like to see a source for the second, I think you're making the mistake OP lead you to, in the assumption that simply because of fewer moving parts, the vehicle is necessarily easier to work on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> That's from May 2017.

It costs less to make an IC engine than to make an electric drivetrain. Replacement cost for a Tesla drivetrain is about $6000 - $15000. Replacement for an volume-product automotive engine is about $2,250 to $4,000. Detroit put a lot of effort over the years into making engine manufacture cheap.

<comment><USER35> Pretty sure you're not finding a new engine for a BMW 5 series for $4000 and that's a cheaper car than Tesla S/X

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> You think in 2025 we will be talking about children mining by hand in the Congo in horrible conditions to provide all those lithium batteries for that future? There is a price for everything.

<comment><USER3> Fun fact. Afghanistan has huge lithium resources.

[https://nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html](https://nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html)

<comment><USER37> Oh, well never mind then: Afghanistan has much better labor protections than the Congo /s

<comment><USER38> it will when afghanistan becomes the USA's 51st state. (or maybe 52nd after NK)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> And this is how car manufacturers going to make up the revenue loss of the new much more reliable electric drive train.

AI + Autonomous driving.

Both of these requires sensors, and silicon. Both hates abuse from vibration and heat/cold cycle, in short, they will fail.

So instead of paying for things that would break in the old car, why not pay for things that only exists in the new car.

It's not hard...

<comment><USER40> Cars have been shipping with sensors and computers since the 80s. When was the last time you heard of somebody's ECU failing? What's that, you've never heard of an ECU before? :-)

<comment><USER41> Agreed. The sensors which fail commonly fail [1] on high milage ICE cars are in the hot places, exhaust and coolant. Battery cooling and electric motors run at a much lower temperature around 40C [2].

1\. [https://www.gsfcarparts.com/blog/when-car-sensors-go-bad- sym...](https://www.gsfcarparts.com/blog/when-car-sensors-go-bad-symptons- for-5-common-sensors) 2\. [https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/questions- about-batt...](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/questions-about- battery-cooling.95620/#post-2237439)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Not many people know the relationship between oil and the US dollar.

The golden age of the US dollar was the Bretton Woods system, where every currency was backed in dollars and dollars were backed in gold. There was however no obligation for the Federal Reserve to accept audits of any kind to validate there was enough gold. Therefore the US could print money at will (and it did), until countries such as France started demanding the conversion of their dollars to gold.

To avoid the equivalent of a bank run at the Federal Reserve level, Nixon moved away from the gold standard and since then the US dollar has been allowed to float.

A less known fact, is how the US dollar has preserved its value in this current setup. The answer is: by having an exclusive deal with oil producers where oil is sold exclusively in US dollars. Since everyone needs oil, if you need dollars to buy oil, the dollar gains a relative value.

Having said this, it is important to understand that as energy consumers move away from oil, the US will need to find another way to sustain its currency or it will inevitably crash, along with everything valued in dollars, such as savings, wages, etc.

<comment><USER43> You are ignoring history. The US is the one (of 2) major countries to:

* NOT have been invaded/conquered

* NOT had major currency hyperinflation/devaluation

* long lasting (centuries at this point)

* currency reissue/replacement

The other arguable is the UK and the pound.

<comment><USER7> There have been significant foreign incursions. Not a real occupation I guess.

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

<comment><USER44> Even when Canada invades, they just end up saving you from a tornado.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Market Research Tip for Startups: Use Mechanical Turks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/05/28/weekly-gem-from-the-founder-institute-mechanical-turks-for-market-research/

<comment><AUTHOR> Another interesting tip from that session: how to tell if your market is real or is a niche. Counterintuitive, but true.</comment>


This online game gave scientists new insight into quantum computing strategies - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/13/11422222/quantum-moves-online-game-optical-lattice-computer <comment><USER2> wonder how reinforcement learning could do on that game?</comment>