Browser-based climate change simulation - <AUTHOR> https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6 <comment><USER2> Interesting tool. It basically says you can:

\- Tax coal, oil, natural gas, bioenergy

\- Subsidize renewables, nuclear, new technology

\- Increase efficiency and electrification of transports, buildings, and industry

\- Reduce population growth

\- Reduce economic growth

\- Reduce deforestation

\- Increase afforestation

For an effect that puts us at +2.1C by 2100 [https://en- roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=120...](https://en- roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=120&p7=100&p10=6&p16=-0.07&p23=30&p30=-0.07&p35=2&p47=5&p50=5&p53=5&p55=5&p57=-10&p63=1.3&p64=1.7&p65=100&g0=1&g1=86&v=2.7.6)

OR you can do these three things:

\- Set a high price on carbon

\- Reduce emissions of methane and other gases

\- Increase usage carbon removal technologies

for a similar effect of +2.1C by 2100 [https://en- roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p39=25...](https://en- roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p39=250&p59=-100&p67=100&g0=1&g1=86&v=2.7.6)

All optimistic actions combined puts us at +1.0C by 2100 [https://en- roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=120...](https://en- roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=120&p7=100&p10=6&p16=-0.07&p23=30&p30=-0.07&p35=2&p39=250&p47=5&p50=5&p53=5&p55=5&p57=-10&p59=-100&p63=1.3&p64=1.7&p65=100&p67=100&g0=1&g1=86&v=2.7.6)

<comment><USER3> There comes a point where the model no longer accepts any progress beyond a +1.0C increase. No matter how many additional actions taken, the floor is +1.0C. It seems the immediate extinction of the human race would still result in an increase in temperature. Is there research that backs this up?

<comment><USER4> Remember this is relative to temperature at the start of the graph (2000) not 2020.

But yes, there is a delay between "stop producing emissions" and "temperature starts going down". CO2 is already high, simply stopping additional output doesn't make the current amount go away overnight and there is still plenty of ice to melt over the seasons in the meantime.

<comment><USER5> Specifically there's a delay of 10 to 30 years between releasing CO2 and getting the full temperature increase from it, just like there's a delay between turning on a stove burner and boiling water in a pot.

On top of that simple heating time, there are feedback effects like melting permafrost releasing additional greenhouse gases, and (as you mentioned) melting ice reducing the planetary albedo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is great and all, but what can we do about the people that don't believe this data? That's where the real issue is.

I have a bunch of coworkers that think scientists are making up this data and skewing results because their jobs depend on it and they want to continue to get funding. "Follow the money" is a common thing they say in regards to this, but also conveniently disregarded and deny that big oil/coal have more to lose.

It's very difficult to fight ignorance, especially when they don't believe facts. This is the main issue with climate change deniers, not the inability to visualize the data.

<comment><USER7> I'm inclined to believe this data because I trust MIT and believe that climate change is a very serious problem.

But this app alone doesn't do a good job of convincing anyone of anything. For starters, it's just a bunch of graphs. I doubt most people who deny climate change are going to understand what they're looking at.

But most importantly, there's no straightforward way for anyone to verify this data on their own, and it seems like this app is kind of bullshitting the numbers. For example, how could they possibly know that "highly subsidized" bioenergy will result in exactly 0.1F increase in global temperatures 80 years from now?

> I have a bunch of coworkers that think scientists are making up this data > and skewing results

Can't you see their reasoning after using this app?

I'm not saying this app is useless or full of lies. Not at all. But I think it can only really work as part of an education session or presentation, where someone can actually explain the reasoning behind that graph, where the data comes from, how they arrived at the conclusions, etc, instead of just throwing it on the internet and hoping it reaches republican farmers on Facebook.

<comment><USER8> It's interesting how you described that as exactly 0.1F.

I have a very different way of looking at data. When I see a single significant digit I assume minimal precision. So, 0.1 is something like 95% chance of 0.1 +\\- 0.05 would be optimistic, and 0.01 to 1 is pessimistic.

I suspect this is a common issue with both scientific and technological reporting for a general audience.

<comment><USER7> _Increasing_ precision here doesn't increase confidence in these estimates.

The phrase "highly subsidized" says basically nothing, yet it's enough to estimate global temperatures 80 years from now with a margin of error of 0.05?

<comment><USER9> Click the three vertical dots to see what "highly subsidized" means -- it's a specific level of subsidy, which you can actually modify in greater detail in the "detail" view.

I absolutely agree that this thing needs a margin of error on the visual output!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The authors don't include some extremely nasty feedback loops the appear to currently be happening. For example, methane release from permafrost melt.

As a result, the simulation appears to be misleadingly optimistic.

\- This tool is based on climate interactive's previous one, C-Road.

\- in the C-Road simulation when you click on parameters -> assumptions to add parameters about methane release through permafrost melting and human activities. By default, it's set to zero, but even their maximum values don't seem as impactful as I would expect.

\- in EN-Road simulation (this one) the methane release parameters are removed! So, no possibility to add any positive feedback loops. It feels like the relation between CO2 and temperature is a simple linear equation, or close to it.

<comment><USER11> While negative feedback loops are big in the media, they are not well understood and difficult to model.

Also, other feedback mechanisms seem to get little attention. Are we only looking to model the feedback mechanisms that reinforce a narrative of cataclysm?

Don't other feedback mechanisms exist that lessen CO2 concentrations, or temperature dissipation?

<comment><USER12> No. They aren't "only looking at feedback mechanisms that reinforce cataclysm." Modelers include every feedback that they can quantify well enough to include and the ones they don't understand well enough are studied carefully to be able to work out what the uncertainties are.

Scientists 50 years ago predicted that we would be at around 1C (1.8F) of warming by 2020 with a 40% over preindustrial co2 level. That's exactly what we have now. They predicted almost perfectly today's climate decades before it came to pass. That may not seem like a big deal until you understand that global temperatures haven't been this high in 130,000 years.

It isn't being recognized properly yet in the media, but the stunning accuracy of predictions by climate modelers is one of the greatest achievements in the history Earth sciences.

<comment><USER13> This sounds like you're saying that 50 years ago there was a single climate model, upon which significant consensus among scientists had been reached, that predicted a 1C temperature rise. I've read quite a few articles and discussions on this topic but have never heard this before.

Am I misunderstanding you? If not, do you have a link that discusses this?

<comment><USER14> "Evaluating the performance of past climate model projections"

[https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019...](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019GL085378)

"We found that climate models – even those published back in the 1970s – did remarkably well, with 14 out of the 17 projections statistically indistinguishable from what actually occurred."

<comment><USER13> Yes, I read that report and participated in the subsequent discussion [0] where I raised a number of concerns with the study, but wasn't able to find anyone who would seriously and objectively address them.

Frustrated by the unwillingness of anyone to engage in rigorous discussion in that thread, I also contacted the authors to see if they were willing to address some of the concerns. Unfortunately, I did not hear back.

I must confess, this strange combination of group declaration that "the science is in", combined with complete refusal to discuss "the science", leaves me feeling a bit suspicious about the degree to which anyone has actually read the science, or is thinking critically on this matter.

If you could address some of the concerns I raised in [0], I would be delighted.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708936)

<comment><USER15> > I raised a number of concerns with the study, but wasn't able to find anyone > who would seriously and objectively address them.

This is an inaccurate summary of that thread, in which you raised a simple accusation that the article cherry-picked the models, were swatted down with a citation from the article referenced in the OP, and then retreated into a maze of long, twisty replies that failed to raise any other specific points.

Your comments in this thread have had the same flavor. Consider brevity and specificity.

<comment><USER13> > This is an inaccurate summary of that thread, in which you raised a simple > accusation that the article cherry-picked the models

Ironically, or not, your summary of my summary of that thread is inaccurate.

> "you raised a simple accusation that the article cherry-picked the models" > is not what I did. What I did do is ask for an explanation of _how we know_ > no cherry picking occurred. Their methodology for article selection was not > published, so therefore it cannot be reproduced. I emailed the authors > asking for clarification, and they did not reply.

> were swatted down with a citation from the article referenced in the OP

"swatted down", but didn't address my actual question, rather re-reffering to the original ambiguous wording that I was complaining about.

A reproducible methodology could clear up the uncertainty (and please note, my claim is that there is _uncertainty_ not that there _is_ wrongdoing), yet no methodology was offered in the original paper, and the authors did not reply to the request.

In such situations, I adopt a position of "Unknown - more information is required", but obviously others have a much more flexible approach to what they're willing to believe. Although, I wonder if this approach varies depending on the subject - would be interesting to read up on.

> and then retreated into a maze of long, twisty replies that failed to raise > any other specific points

"Mazes of long, twisty replies", and failures to "raise any other specific points" are a common consequences when one party in a discussion is unwilling to directly address questions as asked, and the other party's response to that is re-asking the same question.

> Your comments in this thread have had the same flavor.

Indeed they do, as do the replies: unwillingness to directly address questions as asked.

> Consider brevity and specificity.

I will do so.

In return, please consider honesty, epistemic humility, your willingness to acknowledge that ambiguity often exists in written language, and whether a lack of 100% agreement should be interpreted as opposition, as opposed to curiosity and strictness. Sometimes those who appear to be your enemy may actually be some of your best friends.

EDIT: Here's another way to look at it (a better description of my main intent): "conspiracy theorists" and "deniers" are a problem, to some degree, in broad acceptance of climate change messaging, agreed? Might it be a good idea to consider whether there are some flaws in the messaging that could be improved, that would result in reducing the material they have to work with in any influence campaigns?

<comment><USER15> Your question was answered in the comment underneath it -- the answer is taken from the article in the discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709446)

Basically: selection criterion was, any published model that had the inputs ("forcings") and outputs (temperature) needed.

Then, incredibly, the _paper author_ chimed in with this offer:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709010)

And you couldn't respond constructively. If he didn't include a model, point it out.

Instead, you've come to another thread complaining that you had concerns and "wasn't able to find anyone who would seriously and objectively address them".

<comment><USER13> Pardon the delay in replying, I didn't see this until now.

> Your question was answered in the comment underneath it -- the answer is > taken from the article in the discussion:

> > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709446)

Well, shit. This is kind one of those timing error, at the time I wrote that the thread was quite young, so I presumed my more substantive complaint (which is immediately under my comment) would have been seen. That'll teach me for being trite, hopefully.

Anyways, here is that comment (and I imagine you won't like my pedantry, but I did note it as such, and I'm not forcing anyone to answer - if they'd like to allow ambiguity/uncertainty to remain, be my guest):

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708936](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708936)

> As noted in TFA, they looked at 17 forecasts from 14 models

Pardon a little pedantry:

>> The researchers compared annual average surface temperatures across the globe to the surface temperatures predicted in 17 forecasts. Those predictions were drawn from 14 separate computer models released between 1970 and 2001. In some cases, the studies and their computer codes were so old that the team had to extract data published in papers, using special software to gauge the exact numbers represented by points on a printed graph.

They compared annual average surface temperatures across the globe to 17 forecasts, from 14 separate models.

But....how many models did they _look at_ , before _choosing_ those particular 14 models?

TFA doesn't say.

Articles written in this style provide rich fodder for conspiracy theorists, particularly because there is no shortage of examples in the past where authoritative, trustworthy organizations have gotten caught in lies. Rare is the climate change article I've read that can't easily have similar holes poked in it.

What's the real truth here? Based on the literal content of this article, no one knows. It is speculation vs speculation.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

> Then, incredibly, the paper author chimed in with this offer:

> > [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709010](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709010)

> And you couldn't respond constructively. If he didn't include a model, point > it out.

An obvious lack of thoroughness and reasonableness on my part - it would have been wiser to restate my above question in it's entirety rather than expecting him ti find it. So I'll take the reputation hit on that one.

But then on the other hand, I did email one of the authors directly (after looking through the github repo to see if my questions were answered there), with a much more detailed question, in polite terms, and with mention of the possibility that this sort of ambiguity is open to exploitation by propagandists, but didn't hear back, so far anyways.

UPDATE:

To the author's credit, they did address a question posed to them here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21709249)

Also, his reply to another comment is _suggestive_ that _all_ available models (that fit his criteria) were in fact used: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708782](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21708782)

I get a fairly trustworthy feel from him after reading those, although I still prefer that these things were written using more defensive wording.

</comment><comment><USER16> High taxation of fossil energy together with rolling-out of new energy/carbon- removal technology seem to be a real way out of this catastrophe.

Does anyone have a list of startups and established companies actively working on any of those crucial solutions?

Only found this through a quick Github search:

[https://github.com/flamato/awesome-climate-change- ressources...](https://github.com/flamato/awesome-climate-change- ressources/blob/master/README.md)

<comment><USER17> Don't solutions already exist?

There is a lot to do with engine size and vehicle size and weight, especially in the US.

Nuclear energy and trains are possible, even if they require electrifying the railroads.

Drastically reduce beef consumption is also a thing to do.

Not sure about those "carbon removal" techs. A lot of the CO2 tends to go in the atmosphere.

The biggest problem is a political one: You can't fight unemployment and inequality and try to reduce emissions. I can see ideology being a big problem when dealing with climate change. Although fighting climate change can also be an opportunity to steer away from an ideology of competition and go back to cooperation, because politically it WILL BE a nightmare. Things can also derail into complete anarchy where it becomes everyone for himself, where poor people will have to bear high temperatures.

<comment><USER18> > Nuclear energy and trains are possible, even if they require electrifying > the railroads.

Note: this is not a great idea; trains release less than a third as much co2 as a truck and electrifying cross country rail would be _very_ expensive. You need extremely high voltage for long distance transmission, which is incompatible with pantographs (the metal things that power trains/buses from overhead).

You'd essentially need to build dedicated HVDC lines alongside all trunk routes, with regular substations (which are immensely expensive for HVDC) to inject power into the lines. Cross country HVDC would be really great for the grid, but it would be better to build a dedicated solution and forget about the trains. For context, the transmission losses for electricity cause ~2x more CO2 than all trains.

There are just better things to spend money on. Even if we put cold war levels on investment into reducing CO2 theres still better things to do, like dealing with landfill emissions, land use, rehabilitating environments etc.

> Not sure about those "carbon removal" techs. A lot of the CO2 tends to go in > the atmosphere.

One way of looking at it: exhaust gases are 29% CO2 (from oxygen being burnt). Air is .4% CO2. Removing CO2 from air is, bare minimum, 75x more complex than preventing it.

> You can't fight unemployment and inequality and try to reduce emissions. I > can see ideology being a big problem when dealing with climate change.

IMO that is a profoundly unhelpful way of looking at it. The money spent on the Iraq war would be enough to buy enough batteries to store ALL US ELECTRICITY for full two days. People didn't think twice about sprinting into war. Renewable energy is a largely trivial cost. People need to be convinced to throw _scraps_ at it before we scare them with real changes.

<comment><USER9> > IMO that is a profoundly unhelpful way of looking at it.

Agreed.

> The money spent on the Iraq war [& Afghanistan, etc.] would be enough to buy > enough batteries to store ALL US ELECTRICITY for full two days.

Or, a base-version Tesla Model 3 for every driving-age resident of the US. Given that they're manufactured in the US, you'd be reducing emissions and hiring however many tens? (hundreds?) of thousands of people in the manufacturing sector.

We don't even need to be that creative to feed two birds with one scone.

<comment><USER19> Fighting environmentalv issues with extra consumption may not be a good idea. Manufacturing a vehicle pollutes a lot. Up to 50% of the enviromental costs of a vehicle seem to happen at manufacturing time.

[https://archive.attn.com/stories/13637/hidden- environmental-...](https://archive.attn.com/stories/13637/hidden- environmental-cost-manufacturing-vehicles)

<comment><USER9> > Fighting environmental issues

I'm not talking about fighting "environmental issues" — I'm explicitly talking about a) global climate change, which has little to do with ~75% of the environmental impacts of an electric vehicle, and b) not spending $trillions fighting wars due to Western society's unslakable thirst for oil. [1]

Let's not goalpost this — mining & refining metals (etc.) is dirty business, and we should clean it up, but to be clear: it has a very limited impact on climate change.

> extra consumption

Extra consumption? I proposed taking the trillions of dollars spent on military equipment, plus fuel for planes, aircraft carriers, and other ships, tanks, etc., not to mention the deaths of thousands of people — war is "consumption" to an absurd degree — and replacing all that with domestic EVs.

Don't tell me that's "extra consumption". If anything it's a dramatic _reduction_ in consumption.

[1] Whether you believe the war in Iraq was fought for oil or not, oil is a causative factor: without the presence of oil in the Middle East, and the riches its trade brings to the states in the area, it's unlikely we'd be fighting there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you drag all of the bars to their ideal position (lowest on the bad things, highest on the good things) the temperature still goes up by more than a degree.

<comment><USER21> It helps to show that we're screwed. But the degree to how screwed we are can vary a bit.

<comment><USER22> We're not screwed if it's limited to just a degree. Things start getting dicy at 2 degrees, more severe at 3, and so on. To what extent society can adapt and mitigate is a guess. The climate modes are about the climate, not how human civilization handles it.

<comment><USER23> We are are already screwed at the current temperature the 2 degrees is just the point that the politicians thought they could sell to each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is a fantastic use of science communication using design principles - particularly when you use the minigraphs and you can see the small multiples the impact and outcomes.

I've always felt like more stuff like this would help bring home the imperceptible nuances of this complex web. It'd be cool to see some of this stuff for personal daily things. Just now I figured out that each time I charge my macbook pro, it's about equivalent to burning a quarter of a charcoal briquette in raw energy. It would be cool to see something like this for things like riding the bus, buying a new car, flying, eating meat, etc.

<comment><USER25> It would be nice to see the economic cost of each of the options as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The single most effective parameter in this simulation is Carbon price. Sliding it all the way to the right lowers the temperature increase from 4.1 to 3.0. Most of the other parameters do little or nothing.

Of course setting a high price for carbon is different from actually making people/companies pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's surprising how rarely intentional geoengineering (because we're doing it anyway, just unintentionally) is mentioned when discussing climate change. Stratospheric aerosol injection seems like a plausible way of slowing down the warming of earth yet it's too taboo to be even discussed as a viable option.

</comment><comment><USER28> This model is sort of absurd. It doesn't take into account the most important factor... people.

If you made a model of the world today back in 1920, it would be comical.

Imagine you went back to say 1920 and told people that in 2020 they would be surrounded by talking televisions, phones, that we'd be sending people and ships to the moon, mars, etc. and that they could instantly talk to any person on the planet (including loved ones on the other side of the world), they would not believe you.

In the last 100 years (heck even the last 20-30) we've invented a staggering amount of new and interesting things.

In the last 100 years people created interstate highway systems, nuclear power, the internet, radio data networks, self guided weapons, self guided vehicles, robots, rudimentary AI, etc...

What if in 100 years we make fusion work (probably for space travel/war?) and then we replace the existing infrastructure with that. And what if we can do enough carbon removal or storage to solve this?

Any model that doesn't model the history altering inventiveness of humans is not an accurate model at all. It's just really fancy navel gazing.

<comment><USER29> You can't model things like innovation on a hundred year time scale. The reason the predictions from the 1920s "would be comical" is not because people in the 1920s where all fools but because modeling future innovation over a 100 year time scale is extremely challenging. Even if you could include innovation it would reduce the benefit of such a model. Imagine you have a model that has access to a global temperature oracle and it says: "global temperature decreased 0.1 C in 2120 because of innovation". You don't know why that happened and so such a model would be mostly useless to achieving any result.

What you are proposing is like a software performance analytics tool that already includes the fact that you will improve the software performance in the current metrics. However the purpose of such a tool is to figure out where the performance problems are so that you can fix them. Adding such a feature makes the tool useless. What you want to see the baseline and then you want to model the impact of solutions after you discover them.

>What if in 100 years we make fusion work (probably for space travel/war?) and then we replace the existing infrastructure with that.

I think fusion will happen faster than that. However the model we are discussing only goes out 81 years so it doesn't cover the impact of events 100 years hence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> even at the lowest setting the world gdp still shows an exponential growth. doesn't seem sustainable to me, at some point efficiency in industrialized country has to flatten out, even if just because there are so many customers to sell products to so there's an equilibrium somewhere to be reached, especially since increase efficiency suppresses wages reducing demand.

</comment><comment><USER31> it'd be nice to have a body count somewhere...

<comment><USER17> Well a good start would be to try to predict agriculture outputs with those temperature. Honestly I tried asking this question but got no answer.

Cereals might be just fine, and growing food in places where it's not possible to grow food is also a solution. But I'm terribly curious about the impact on food.

Heatwaves will probably cause a lot of deaths at first, but once it happens, there are easy things cities can do to mitigate them.

<comment><USER32> > Cereals might be just fine, and growing food in places where it's not > possible to grow food is also a solution.

The further away from the tropics you go, the less productive is agriculture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> No sane setting gets us down to 2°C. I don't feel taken seriously. Can I get a slider for the frequency of volcanic eruptions?

On a slightly more serious note, can we tame volcanoes by somehow - ideally - producing energy and ... prevent eruptions, somewhat comparable to the way earth wires actively do so with lightning strikes?

<comment><USER34> I want a slider that lets you shrink the population (not just "low growth"). Climate change is just one of many ways that overpopulation is negatively impacting all life on earth.

<comment><USER35> What would be the units? Number of gas chambers?

<comment><USER34> I was thinking more along the lines of IUDs

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> About 5 or 6 years ago towards the end of my undergrad my professor picked up on this and we held some mock UN Climate assemblies using this tool.[1] The class divided up into first world, developing, and poorer nations and each had to bring their needs to the table while trying to compromise. I got to actually lead a session at MIT for some incoming freshman which was fun.

The dashboard is super handy to drive home the numbers on our energy production/use and its effect on the climate but the workshop really drives home the political implications and how hard it will be to actually implement these changes.

[1] [https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-action- simu...](https://www.climateinteractive.org/tools/climate-action-simulation/)

<comment><USER13> > The class divided up into first world, developing, and poorer nations and > each had to bring their needs to the table while trying to compromise.

Modeling the debate on the dimension of national wealth seems like a good idea. I'm curious, was there any discussion about potential value in modeling on other dimensions, such as political affiliation?

<comment><USER36> Not that I know of. We were just running off the materials En-Roads provided. From what I remember, though, each bloc is given cues as to what industries and population they represent which then plays into their arguments. So it isn't outright said that someone should argue a conservative or liberal angle, but knowing you need to defend your nation's industrial production or vulnerable communities lends itself towards some political talking points on one side or the other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> These are too abstract for most humans. Someone needs to do a layer on top of this that instead has options like:

\- fake meat becomes widely adopted and we stop farming cattle

\- electric cars see 50% market share adoption

Tangible things anyone can wrap their head around.

<comment><USER38> Also having very little effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> What value of Climate Sensitivity is assumed in the model?

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

Edit: Found it in sec. 9.2 in the manual. It's 3.

[https://www.climateinteractive.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/1...](https://www.climateinteractive.org/wp- content/uploads/2019/12/En-ROADS_Reference_Guide_v92.docx)

<comment><USER40> You can change the sensitivity.

First from top menu simulation -> assumptions. Then from below > "Climate system sensitivities" you can alter Climate sensitivity, Ocean mixing index, CO2 fertilization index, Sea level rise from ice sheet melting and Carbon cycle land and ocean uptake

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Reducing all energy sources to the mminium doesn't change much... That's sounds strange because if we reduce energy, then, well, we emit less CO2. Am I missing something ?

<comment><USER41> That doesn't have it reduce the energy, it's just shifting between them I think. So total energy use seems to remain the same, you're just changing where people get it.

<comment><USER42> Yes. An interesting effect of this is that subsidizing bio fuels makes climate change worse because it takes away from other renewables.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So, in the best-case scenario, there will be a mere 1.0degree Celcius increase and in the worst-case scenario, the average increase will be 6.5degree Celcius. I don't know how it is possible to model technological breakthroughs. I mean if we have a working Nuclear Fusion technology by 2100, that could drastically change everything - (almost) free energy = unlimited desalinated water = full aforestation, even in the desert areas.

<comment><USER35> The knock on effects from unlimited energy go a lot further.

We could use technology we have today for CO2 capture since it is heavily energy dependent and simply scale it massively. The bulk of industry processes that currently require coal, oil, or gas to provide cheap heat could be fully electrified. Prices of a lot of commodities would drop dramatically. Indoor farming would be a cinch. People and governments would abandon internal combustion for the cheaper alternative.

We could do absurd things that no one would even consider today like greening deserts as you mentioned or settling the arctic. You might be able to replace concrete with basalt if you could cleverly design a system for melting stone and casting the resulting lava in a form. Hell, you could banish winter by putting radiant heat in everything, walls, sidewalks, streets, and adding supplemental lighting like Moonlight Towers[0] except I suppose they would be Sunlight Towers in this case. The list goes on.

The world would change so much it would be like living through the first half of the 20th century again. From horses, coal, and brick buildings to jet aircraft, nuclear power, and glass skyscrapers.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> What happens if we run the simulation backwards through time?

<comment><USER45> <glitch>

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Everyone get your thinking hats on. Based on this model, increasing building efficiency is the #1 way that we as entrepreneurs can have an impact. Passivhaus anyone?

<comment><USER41> Buildings _and Industry_ is the heading, which covers a lot more than just housing.

<comment><USER46> Correct but there is nothing preventing the use of Passivhaus technology in commercial buildings.

<comment><USER47> Includes heavy industry presumably? e.g. no such thing as passivhaus blast furnance or a passivhaus lime kiln.

<comment><USER48> That makes me wonder, could the waste heat from those be used for residential district hearing? Or desalination? Not just technically, but usefully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A simpler version of this was used for a while as part of MIT's ClimateColab, which attempted to crowdsource creative solutions to climate change.

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

(They're still running contests, but they've scaled down a lot.)

</comment><comment><USER49> Refuses to run for me. with Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:71.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/71.0

"Detected Characteristics - Mobile browser"

Don't tell me the web developers now assume that Linux == Android...

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious what those carbon removal techs are exactly.

Because a lot of the CO2 tends to stay in the atmosphere.

<comment><USER50> Trees

<comment><USER17> trees are not really a good way to capture carbon

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> what does 'new technology' even mean and how does it enter the calculations?

<comment><USER4> From the app: "Discover a brand-new cheap source of electricity that does not emit greenhouse gases. Some speculate that such a breakthrough could be nuclear fusion or thorium-based nuclear fission, however, there are unknown risks associated with any new energy supply. Decide when the breakthrough occurs, its initial cost relative to coal, and how long the delays in commercialization and scale up would be."

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> 0,5 degrees difference only for a population change of 5 billion people? Not very plausible (low vs. high growth).

These simplistic models are counter-productive IMHO.

<comment><USER40> It's very plausible after you realize how much warming comes from processes that are already in effect and that the change in population is gradual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> We observe the power of a carbon tax

<comment><USER54> I'm also surprised how much of a difference nuclear can make.

I mean, I know that nuclear is great as a stopgap until we build solar panels that we can actually recycle and install all the wind farms, etc. But the trouble is that a nuclear plant takes 30 years to build and for the public's opinion we might as well be proposing to move their backyards to a high tsunami risk zone or repeating all the actions that led up to the Chernobyl disaster. I've given up on this happening.

Can it still make such a big difference, even if we only start building today? It makes me wonder if I shouldn't be giving up on the option of nuclear.

<comment><USER5> > a nuclear plant takes 30 years to build

Only if your country isn't serious about it. South Korea builds modern nuclear plants in about five years: [https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/2027347/south- korea-s...](https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/2027347/south-korea-second- fastest-nuclear-plant-building-country)

<comment><USER54> Oh, wow, okay. That changes the perspective quite a bit. Thanks!

<comment><USER55> There's a lot of issues with depending upon solely nuclear to solve these problems, but I'd like to see nuclear in the mix.

Unlike the MIT model, components of electric generation are not simple linear systems that exhibit the superposition principle. Renewables need a whole lot of moderate-term storage and over-provisioning to get to where we want to be, and nuclear could help ease that by providing a source of dependable base load.

If we're transitioning to electric cars and homes away from gas heat, we need a whole lot of power in the middle of the night-- where photovoltaic doesn't help and wind can be iffy for days at a time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The single biggest line item in this program is agricultural methane emissions. The second single item is drastic reduction of energy usage in industrial applications. Even now the farmers in the hague are protesting the former. The latter is simply impossible.

This programme for climate control is an unrealistic plan thought up by a bunch of nerds. You should all elect me dictator for life and do what I, the cyber-fuhrer, command you.

Step one: we must recognize this is OUR planet and OUR environment, so we can do whatever the hell we want with it.

Step two: Reshape carbon level perspectives. carbon levels above 500 PPM are unhealthy and we are on track to reach that in a few years. Canned air is a thing now. We must curb our carbon emissions and reduce carbon levels in order to be more healthy, not control global warming. Everyone, even the critics, recognize Co2 above 1000 is bad for your health and everyone has experienced high CO/CO2 levels.

Step three: The climate can go fuck itself. We'll glass over a portion of arid desert or mountain land the size of texas, divided into plots of land 100 square miles each in remote areas around the globe, and cover them in mylar reflective sheeting. The increased albedo will more than counteract the temperature trends estimated from greenhouse gas based warming. I have done the math.

Step four: We must observe that it is not merely renewable energy but renewable infrastructure that must exist to fix this problem. Batteries and solar panels and devices that wear out too quickly exhaust our resources, and infrastructure costs make up a large portion of the factors limiting adoption. A Renewable Society becomes our focus as a total propaganda and government mandate worldwide.

Step five: we create a global research funding scheme and open patent pool that internationally maximizes research effort into renewable infrastructure. We establish trade agreements that create international laws which incentivize renewable energy adoption through guaranteeing adoption payoff by establishing long-lived warranties and government subsidized repair and renewal programs, ensuring that your investment into the future is a safe bet.

Step six: we hang anyone who disagreed with this post.</comment>


We moved to Turkey from San Francisco to continue working on our startup - <AUTHOR> https://shafyy.com/post/turkey/ <comment><USER2> Has the author watched the news in the last few years? German and Swedish online security experts were thrown in jail in 2017 basically for organizing a crypto party [1]. I know first-hand of several software engineers who basically had to flee the country with their families in order to avoid being disappeared. With all the possible countries to move your startup to, Turkey would be pretty low on my list. I wouldn't even enter the country for a vacation.

[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/global-condemnation- tu...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/global-condemnation-turkeys- detention-innocent-digital-security-trainers)

</comment><comment><USER3> >Obviously, VR will transform the nature of remote work.

The rest of the post makes perfect sense given their situation. This, however, is pretty silly. I do firmly believe that there is a need for better remote collaboration tools. I see pretty much zero evidence that VR is an essential part (or even an optional part) of that.

<comment><USER4> I 100% agree with the author on this. VR in its current iteration is clearly not suitable for this in any way, but down the line the fundamentals of VR align perfectly with some of the pain points of remote collaboration. With all current collaboration tools the parties are still bridging the gap of working in different places. In VR, everyone is inhabiting the same virtual space. It's just completely different. Practically, all things switch from n representations to 1 representation. Psychologically we register the interactions completely differently because the parties are saying things not in their room with a video displaying them in your room. They're saying things _next to you, to the person sitting across from you, while turning and walking away_. The fidelity of interactions (and in turn the interpersonal bonds and memories you form) is just an order of magnitude higher.

If hardware is good enough for this to be a practicality, we may be working in AR 100% of the time anyways, and depending on if you want to be remotely present with others, you just swap out your real environment for a shared virtual one. In that dream scenario, the glasses or whatever are high enough res anyways you'd rather use them to make virtual dynamic user interfaces than stare at a static 2d monitor.

It's going to be a long, long, long time before any of this happens but I'm guessing these are the kind of far-off things the author was implying.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, exactly. I would say in 10 years it will be normal to work 8h a day in VR. But we will see companies start doing it much earlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Note that although OP's parents are Turkish they say they have never lived in Turkey before, so there may have been a certain level of underestimation about various factors of living in Istanbul (which is one of the most beautiful and vibrant cities in the world IMHO.

* Traffic: For those of you who complain about SF traffic, Istanbul traffic jams has to be experienced to be believed. In addition, people drive, how to put this mildly, out of the norm. After living in the US for 20+ years, it takes me 1-2 days to get accustomed to driving there (I go back twice a year and learned to drive in Turkey)

* Salaries: Although I only have anecdata, I think the engineering salaries are not very low, e.g. compared to Europe. In the US and esp. in the SV it's relatively easy to find people who'll work for chicken feed for a while at a startup to gamble at a chance to be millionaires later. IN Turkey such exits are exceedingly rare so many young people want to play it safer (the talent is absolutely top notch, however).

* Food: This is _very_ cheap and great. 'Nuff said.

* Rent: Rent in Istanbul, depending on the neighborhood, can be stratospheric. This plays into the traffic problem: In order to avoid traffic you want to live closer to your office (at least on the same continent!) but this can be costly.

* Other: I left off the political situation from the discussion. Depending on your leanings, this may or may not be a problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, if you don't speak Turkish or don't want to learn speaking it a little, life can suck. It's possible, but when you speak Turkish you have so much more to explore and experience with the kind Turkish people.

Yeah, agree. Istanbul traffic is like LA traffic.

We pay $700 for a great apartment Ortaköy, which would probably be worth $4k in SF (or $3k in Zurich). It's short-term and completely furbished, too.

There are definitely more hip areas, but I like Ortaköy, you can walk to Besiktas, and can take the tram to Karaköy (Walk + Tram I mean).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a startup founder living in San Francisco, currently in Istanbul, Turkey, for a half work trip, half hiring. First of all the same caveat applies: if you want to live in Turkey, you _have_ to know Turkish. Turkey is closer to France than Thailand in terms of tolerance for English, tourists get a pass, but otherwise fiercely protective. If you're not a visitor, you are expected to know at least basic Turkish or be a social pariah.

The second thing is, also the reason I'm here — Turkey does have a good market for engineers, but the wages are fairly close to the US average in PPP terms. I think Udemy does have a team in Ankara, and there are quite a lot of local and profitable startups, so the competition for talent, while not at SF levels, is not nil. This is being exacerbated by the relative ease of leaving Turkey, lots of good developers have already left because of the illiberal climate of the past decade, for jobs in London, Berlin, Stockholm, New York and San Francisco. They're in pretty high demand far as I can see, because they do provide a good balance of western-ish values, decent langauge skills and an up to date tech stack.

Their willingness to move to the USA is pretty low, however, far as I can see. Berlin seems to be much more palatable to them. If the country recovers and ends up being a more livable place, I do suspect Turkish engineers' willingness to move to even Berlin will likely drop commensurately.

Third, the country is cheap, but it's not India, Philippines or Thailand cheap. It's a good deal for someone from Switzerland to live in an Aegean paradise and still be in the broad EU time zone, within 2 hours flight distance to Zurich. But it's probably not cheap enough to pull people from San Francisco, unless they're Turkish.

Why am I not moving there? Well, I need access to investors, potential customers, collaborators, and yes, even employees in San Francisco. Istanbul is a great city to live in, but it definitely has its fair share of predatory investors that you don't ever want to talk to — in fact, that's the vast majority of investors here, as you'd expect from any non-tech-hub — and mid- to-upper class tech talent, but SF / NY / Seattle still wins in terms of average skill. I do visit every 6 months, though, and I would love to have an office here eventually.

(If you live in Istanbul, we're hiring for a remote Go engineer position for Aether. Email in profile if interested!)

<comment><AUTHOR> > _If the country recovers and ends up being a more livable place, I do > suspect Turkish engineers ' willingness to move to even Berlin will likely > drop commensurately._

After yesterday's vote, we're on a good path for this to happen :-)

<comment><USER7> I was going to ask if yesterday's election was a decision point for moving to Istanbul from Bodrum?

I think people underestimate the language barrier here. I think it is not going to be "hard", it is going to be impossible. Even in Istanbul, especially in some districts you can't find a single person who can speak English.

I am a Turkish student in the US right now getting my masters. Turkey would be the last place I would move to for many reasons. First being the language barrier and the corruption. I know the advantage in expense but I would guess there are countries with better opportunities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As an outsider, at this point I have no idea why anyone would want to do a startup in SF. I mean, obviously, all the connections and resources are nice, but you are literally burning investor money on $5k/mo rent. That's absurd.

Rent out a house in Austin, Texas for $2k and each of your co-founders can share a room. There's investors and as deep a talent pool as you'll ever need unless you're GoogleAmazon and you need a constant stream of talent to feed your machine.

Heck, I live in Houston. I'm working on a startup idea in .NET Core and Vue. If it ever takes off, it will be extremely easy to find 5-10 .NET developers. Hell, if I ever need another really good senior developer I can poach them for $140k, which is a really good salary here. Aren't they paying juniors in SF that much now?

If I ever need to hire 500 developers and a few experienced distributing computing PhDs I'll be too busy rolling in cash to care. I'll just sell my company to someone else and be too busy sailing around the mediterranean to care about talent shortages in Houston.

For the record, I live in a 3 bedroom house right near downtown that costs less than a year's senior dev salary in SF. Are any of you SF people going to be able to get that, unless you become fantastically wealthy?

I'm not trying to be all sour grapes, it just doesn't make sense to me.

<comment><USER9> _I mean, obviously, all the connections and resources are nice_

You pretty much answered your rhetorical question there.

<comment><USER10> The main connections a startup needs is customers. The vast majority of customers live outside of the Bay area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > It's true, though. The concentration of talented, hard-working, smart people > in SV is astonishing.

I've lived in the Bay Area for a long time, and recently moved to Seattle; I find the rank and file talent in Seattle to be a good noch or two above SV. I've also heard that from startups too who looked to Seattle after not finding the talent they needed.

<comment><USER12> You aren't supposed to tell people that! Also it rains and is dreary all winter there.

<comment><USER13> Even a little before dotcoms, there was a perception in the Pacific Northwest, of Californians moving in and driving up prices, and there were the jokes: "It rains all the time! Always gray! And slugs _everywhere_! We have to check inside our shoes before we put them on!"

<comment><USER12> Those aren't jokes but all accurate warnings.

E.g. the slugs: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/2fd5f3/banana_slug...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/2fd5f3/banana_slugs_the_slimy_first_sign_of_fall/)

<comment><USER13> In all seriousness, you don't realize how many slugs there are in the PNW until you walk barefoot on the grass in your backyard after dark. It's a minefield.

And when a slug sadly squishes underfoot (worst: between your toes), it's this weird slick adhesive that you can't wipe off, but has to be scrubbed off before the noticeable slickness is removed. Then you probably want to keep scrubbing, for grossness.

When visiting the coast, in the morning we woke to find multiple large slugs scattered around up the glass patio door window that faced the ocean. It was a mixed view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great post.

It's important to be close to your customers. If your customers are in SF, then being in SF can make sense. Another reason why you may want to be in SF is you need access to SaaS veterans at the VP level.

Having someone in the team who has already done it is the best growth hack.

But then, NY is getting as good as SF for that, and, you get to live in an awesome city (I live in NY).

All other reasons often raised like "pool of developers" or proximity to investors are BS.

Like mentioned in the post, you don't need to be close to developers and having coffees with investors is a waste of time especially in the early stages.

I lived for 3 months in SF. It was very unpleasant. The reasons are listed in the comments and in the post. And I am affluent enough to afford to live alone in a 1BR, dine out, drive my way around.

Raised money, got the hell out back to the east coast.

</comment><comment><USER15> > We can't grab a coffee with a random investor tomorrow. We don't meet as > many driven people who are interested in tech. We can't go to fancy > networking events.

In Bodrum, that's correct. That's where people go for vacations. But compared to Istanbul's 16m, San Francisco is a village with a population of less than a million people. Even the whole Bay Area has half the population of Istanbul despite being five times bigger. There are many, many universities located there which results in a huge number of startups, investors, incubation centers and alike. I feel this perception comes from a very biased viewpoint. SF isn't the center of the world.

> And there aren't millions of coders who live nearby to potentially hire

Hell, just mail me the position details and I can max out your inbox with people who would love to work for less then a quarter of SV rates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure if you read my entire post, but this is exactly my point, too :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Given the only images many of us have of Turkey is the Western press what can you tell us are the biggest misconceptions and misrepresentations of living and doing business in Turkey.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question. I have only been living here for 2 months, but let me try:

\- The cuisine is super diverse (not only kebap)

\- The people are exteremly friendly, helpful and tolerant

\- A bit like the US Trump thing, if you live in Turkey, in your daily life, you don't really notice that the government is shitty.

\- The downside of being easy-going and torelant is that Turks often don't give a shit about rules (the opposite of Swiss), e.g. if there's a no parking area they will still park their car there. Also, people are less punctual or dependable (not in a sense that they will fuck you over but it's just normal not to show up and just reschedule or be late).

\- Of course, these are generalizations, so take it with a grain of salt :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think it's an interesting story, but one should be aware of political instability in Turkey that may be getting acutely worse in the short term: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/world/europe/istanbul- may...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/world/europe/istanbul-mayor- election-erdogan.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm looking to move to Bodrum from NYC for many of these same reasons :-) Turkey has a lot of potential to be a remote work hub.

<comment><USER19> Turkey is run by a near-dictator and is right next door to a country in the midst of a civil war; it certainly doesn't look like a safe place to move to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Istanbul and Bodrum are probably safer than most US cities. Also, go search an google for yesterday's mayoral elections in Istanbul. A BIG step in the right direction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We did 100% the same, moved from San Francisco to Germany (Munich, Berlin) and it was 100% worth it! <3

</comment><comment><USER21> But was Turkey a convenient default option, e.g. because of some extended family support that you're getting there? What other countries, or what other cities in the US did you consider before deciding on Turkey as the best option?

</comment><comment><USER22> I would imagine that the legal huddles alone (obtaining work authorization for instance) would present a multi-year mind-numbing experience, even with the advantage of deep pockets and well-heeled legal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, if you work on your own startup you don't need work authorization. Just a tourist visa, which is pretty simple to get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Obviously, VR will transform the nature of remote work.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't network latency be an important consideration with VR-based remote work?

<comment><USER24> 5g is so fast right now, you can even do real-time music collaborations.

[https://www.ericsson.com/en/blog/2019/3/real-time-music- coll...](https://www.ericsson.com/en/blog/2019/3/real-time-music- collaboration-with-5G)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > We tried to raise money from VCs in SV twice, and we failed. Why? Our > product wasn't good enough and we didn't have enough growth.

Maybe it's time to stop, or take your experience and re-apply it elsewhere?

The thing with software is that it's very quick to prove (or disprove) a business model. If you're working on something for years and don't have the profits (or free users) to show, it's unlikely that you'll succeed.

Now, let's be honest: Meeting people in VR is really cool. I'm sure that you can figure SOMETHING out that will apply in the K-12 space, even if it's not what your original vision is.

<comment><USER26> >The thing with software is that it's very quick to prove (or disprove) a business model. If you're working on something for years and don't have the profits (or free users) to show, it's unlikely that you'll succeed.

Uber is a pretty strong empirical case study in why this argument is wrong. The entire DotCom bubble, in fact, has been a similar case study. When you prop things up with VC funding it actually becomes very hard to disprove bad ideas because price signaling and market logic stops working. It becomes entirely driven by the animal spirits that govern pitch meetings for as long as the BS stream can be maintained.

I mean, people are still pouring money into cryptocurrency! And it's quite likely that lots of good and potentially successful ideas are being starved of funding because of oxygen being taken up by sexier and flashier ones that will flame out quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I keep hearing that SF spends so much money on the homeless, but I don't see that to be the case. NYC spent $3.2b in 2019 [1]; they guarantee a bed for every person, every night, etc. If SF wants to solve the issue, look to NYC, and open it's checkbook.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-22/nyc- doubl...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-22/nyc-doubles- spending-on-homelessness-to-3-2-billion-since-2014)

<comment><USER28> Hold on a second. NYer here. Yes, we spent a lot of money on the problem. But we did not 'solve the issue.' Not even close. Our problem doesn't seem as bad as SF's (perhaps just less visible due to more clearing), but we still regularly have human feces to deal with, train cars trashed, people screaming/disturbed, etc.

I think it's key to remember the difference, albeit overlapping, between homeless and emotionally-distressed. You can be homeless and nobody would know -- living in shelters, working a job, etc. You can also have a home and appear, as far as we're all concerned, to be homeless, by begging on trains or acting in other anti-social ways.

<comment><USER29> I don't think they are saying that New York has solved it, but that SF can't solve it without doing at least as much as NYC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I can't even work in SF. The time wasted to drive to work kills me, I can't get desensitized to all the homeless shitting on streets, stabbing themselves with needles, talking schizophrenically in a dead language, every time I go grab a coffee or lunch in a cheaper area, it's like watching animal slaughter every day. Quality of life definitely much better in Mediterranean city I live today.

<comment><USER31> It's strange that a rich area can't take care of this problem. E.g. supporting the homeless some way, cleaning them up and helping them to find some job and housing.

<comment><USER32> They spend vast amounts of money on the problem, but the way they approach the problem makes the solution intractable. To the extent the drug addicted and severely mentally ill homeless can want things, and want the right to continue their current life, they are afforded that right. That is to say, it is their fundamental _right_ to use drugs, live, and defecate on the street (I know these things are illegal, but really, legality is determined by enforcement, not what is on the books. And as far as enforcement goes, these things are legal for all intents and purposes).

So long as they don't want help, and so long as it is their right to refuse and continue as they are, nothing will change. The alternatives are many, but they all start with some type of enforcement agency willingly stripping these peoples rights, and forcibly and potentially violently taking them into government custody, which the citizens of San Francisco find far more appalling than solving the problem.

Note: What I said above doesn't generalize to 'the homeless,' and people out of a job and down on their luck, It specifically is targeted to the worst offenders who scatter the city with waste and needles.

<comment><USER33> SF spends $250 million in 2017. 1/3 on actual homeless, 2/3 on preventing homelessness (e.g. rental subsidies).

[https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Bu...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/Businesses- must-contribute-more-to-city-s-13178743.php)

<comment><USER34> other rich areas violate civil rights. when people say "take care of it" they mean "we'll tolerate wild indiscretions"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Tesla 3  and "Shit Talkers" Like Me - <AUTHOR> http://ericpetersautos.com/2016/04/07/tesla-3-shit-talkers-like/ <comment><USER2> Seems like the core complaint is with subsidies for electric vehicles.

I can see where he's coming from... 'course, without subsidies, I doubt wind and solar would be taking off the way they are, now, as those subsidies allowed economies of scale to develop which have led to significantly reduced costs. Sometimes government needs to subsidize technology in order to help it take off (and that includes the Internet, which allowed the author to broadcast their post to the world).

This also ignores the fact that existing gas powered vehicles are heavily subsidized thanks to a) subsidies to the petroleum industry, and b) negative externalities. So there's a bit of hypocrisy, here.

</comment><comment><USER3> One major flaw with this article is the notion that supercharging takes 30 - 45 minutes. A typical stop duration at a supercharger is 15 minutes.

The author also fails to mention the most appealing aspect of the car for the performance oriented: instant torque. After getting a Model S, I could never go back to the days of gears (even manually controlled gear changes are sluggish in comparison).

<comment><USER4> Another is his math.

> I'm the "shit talker" for boggling at the idea that people are going to be > happy about waiting around for half an hour to forty-five minutes to get > back on the road again? We're talking waits-to-get-going that are 150 times > the typical 5 minute refuel with a gas-engined car.

Yeah I'd balk at a 12.5 hour wait time too.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I was really confused by that line, too. Where did he get the 150 from?! Unless he takes 18 seconds to fill his car with gas?

<comment><USER6> If you just count time when the pump is pumping some of the really old pumps could definitely fill a compact with a small gas tank in 15-20sec. While that's not the norm but it's definitely possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apparently there are trade offs when using electric cars, which apparently makes them terrible. Inconvenience for certain types of driving means they're just awful.

There's no silencing of 'shit talkers' by 'control freaks', just push back to a poor argument.

Electric cars are good for commuting, and poor for long distance. There's nothing more to it than that. I commute on a bike and mostly want a car for long trips, so I won't buy an electric car. Somehow I can accept that fact without deciding people who want them are idiots.

<comment><USER8> This is my thinking of the article as well. Its extremely negative for reasons I can't really fathom.

The Tesla fanboys are definitely building up their own reality-distortion- field... ignoring some basic truths of the technology. But the overall benefits and pro/con tradeoffs are known at this point.

But countering that with your own reality-distortion-field is wrong.

Electric vehicles excel at short-range driving (Leaf, Bolt, Model 3), but have issues for long road trips (even if the Supercharger network tries to solve the issue). Hybrids seem to strike a good balance (Volt / Prius Prime). ICE Vehicles are the status-quo and really you can't go wrong with old technology, since everyone knows the full scope of pros/cons of the status quo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am not sure what the point of this article is. He is essentially unhappy that Tesla is, in his opinion, deceptive about the reality of owning one of its cars. I disagree - I don't think anyone is really that surprised when they buy a laptop marketed as "Up to 12 hours of battery life" and then get 3 hours of battery life while playing a video game. I think people understand this is how electronics work, and I doubt anyone is spending $40k after taxes and fees on a car without, at some point, realizing or being told that the 300 mile depends on a lot of factors. A pretty basic search on the internet will tell you this in under 60 seconds of effort. And I don't think anyone buys this car under the impression they will fill it up in a couple minutes like an ICE.

<comment><USER10> If you read the comments, he's a hardcore libertarian whose problem is really the tax subsidies on Tesla. The rest of it is just weak reaches for additional justifications.

<comment><USER9> He might have a stroke if he sees how much oil companies get in subsidies.

<comment><USER10> He claims that he doesn't like that either, but that without those subsidies ICE cars are economically viable but Tesla would never sell cars. Anyway, I'm giving you the reasonable summary, don't go actually reading those comments, they're worse than the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author doesn't seem to realize that electric power produced by even the dirtiest coal power plant is far less harmful (in terms of CO2 and particulates) than a gasoline engine _per mile travelled_.

</comment><comment><USER12> Many normal ICE cars only get 350-450 miles of range which also drops significantly when driving is dominated by heavy acceleration or even highway driving > 70mph.

This "writer" has no room to criticize writers.

<comment><USER13> Or turning on the heater?

And the Supercharger that refuels your Tesla in 5 minutes is ... where?

<comment><USER14> The funny thing about the wait time that everyone keeps talking about is that, apparently, no one actually cares about waiting.

Tesla piloted their battery swap program over a year ago, where you could swap out your battery for a fully charged one in under 2 minutes. You'd get all your range back faster than you could refuel a gas car.

Want to know what happened? No one used it. Because no one cares about refueling in under 5 minutes if a supercharge station takes 15 - 30 or you can just plug in at home. It's literally not a thing people (in general) care about.

I don't know how to phrase this any other way. NO. ONE. CARES.

<comment><USER10> Were the batteries brand new? Were the battery swap stations everywhere that had a supercharger? Did everyone know about it? It seems like there are possibly some other explanations than people didn't care about the recharge wait. I know I wouldn't swap out my known good batteries for some dodgy unknown batteries from the last Tesla that went through here just for convenience, but that wouldn't mean that I didn't care about the inconvenience..

<comment><USER13> See my comments. It almost seems designed to fail, to "prove" how preferable supercharging is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Elon Musk's latest four-wheeled exercise in rent-seeking

How is selling a car rent-seeking? It's pretty much the opposite extreme as far as I can tell, unless he's making the argument that Elon is rent seeking by buying up the raw resources for making lithium batteries (and even that is pretty weak).

<comment><USER15> I think because Tesla sells carbon credits to other auto manufacturers, or something along that lines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I often drive to Denver or Galveston several times a year. 600 and 500 miles. So if the initial charge holds 300 miles, I would need probably 2 20 minute stop for Galveston and 2 30 minute stops for Denver (if I could find super charging stations on the way to Denver).

Given that I often stop for far longer than that, far more often, just to stretch my legs, I could easily work around the Model 3's charging requirements.

<comment><USER8> However, the supercharger spots aren't everywhere like a gas station. You have to plan your trips to stop exactly at a supercharger.

I drove several hundred miles away to North Carolina without any planning, knowing that any ol' gas station could fill me up. But there are only 7 superchargers in North Carolina, and only 5 superchargers on my projected path (including the superchargers from the other states I passed through on the highways)

I'm still leaning towards the Volt, which would be effectively electric but the gas-generator is a good idea IMO. The one time a year I drive outside of my city will be gas-based, but that's a lot better than a 100% gas vehicle.

I will say that I stop for 30+ minutes to sitdown and eat with my family... __no where close __to a supercharger. We have a few restaurants that we as a family meet up at on these long trips as a family tradition. I dunno about the excuse "Hey guys, lets meet somewhere else because the current location isn't close to a Supercharger, and my 90k+ Car demands that we stop there for our trip".

Plenty of gas stations in these random small towns across America, but still very few superchargers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The one point that I think worries me that the author makes is about how much the electric car revolution will really cost in terms of raw materials and lifetime CO2 and environmental issues.

Is there anything accurate on the actual pollution cost vs a say a VWs (irony intended) lifetime emissions; it seems incredibly hard to calculate!</comment>


There's an intern for that - <AUTHOR> http://internstore.com/

<comment><USER2> I recently read some blog posts by HN frequenters about the work they have their unpaid interns doing. I don't believe it's legal to have them doing that work without pay; if you treat an intern like an employee, you have to pay them, or you're violating both federal and state labor laws.

Just a reminder.

[http://www.startupcompanylawyer.com/2010/04/15/can-a- califor...](http://www.startupcompanylawyer.com/2010/04/15/can-a-california- company-have-unpaid-interns/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah this is true.

I'd like to use this space to say don't become an intern at some sleaze bag's company. Make sure they pay you more than they do at Taco Bell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems strange...the most recent ad basically says "if you need an industry level professional for cheap we've got it." If you are an industry level professional why are you at HyperIsland doing internships? The ads are slick, but by definition they offer a product that doesn't exist. It will be difficult for them to bridge the expectation gap created by the ads.

<comment><USER5> It puts a spin on jobs for interns replacing stacks of resume/cs with videos/apps.

Those are not interns at HyperIsland. Those are students. It is described in the press release.

<http://internstore.com/press/press.php>

There is no gap, HyperIsland well specifically the students of HyperIsland are touting that they are good enough such that agencies should come to them instead of the other way around and it is as easy as getting an app.

I was not able to see any hidden meaning of cheap / low value in there.

<comment><USER4> Why else would you hire an intern?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the background track but it is much too distracting to hear what the ad is saying. Is it just me?

In any case, if executed well I personally think this is a great idea. Student interns are pretty much cheap contractors because they generally lack experience and seek experience. For simple tasks companies can benefit from filtering through a database and watching a few videos to look for a great personality to work with.

When I was an intern I learned a lot and they got cheap labor out of it. Win- win IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wait, is the intent of the video to draw a comparison between the over- saturation of unpolished iPhone apps with an endless supply of interns?

</comment><comment><USER8> Fantastic execution and something to do about interns? Has to be HyperIsland.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hmmm... They only have iNterns in stock in the white style. I'm gonna hold out until the fall release.

<comment><USER10> I see what you did there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very nice idea. The site is well done. I like</comment>


Chicago Airports Recommend 3-Hour Cushion for Security Lines Tuesday - <AUTHOR> http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/05/17/chicago-airports-recommend-3-hour-cushion-for-security-lines-tuesday/ <comment><USER2> Is that a three hour line for both international and domestic? In Chicago, you have to leave security to get to the other terminal. How much time do arriving international travelers need to make their domestic connection?</comment>


Ask HN: Best Chrome extensions you use - <AUTHOR> It can be ranging anything from a nice productivity app to a daily news extension etc.. Please restrict to free ones :) <comment><USER2> Literally used the HN search bar: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=best%20chrome%20extentions&sor...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=best%20chrome%20extentions&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)</comment>


Programs are people too – a different look at code quality and software design - <AUTHOR> http://nikolay.rocks/2015-09-08-programs-are-people-too

<comment><USER2> It is 2015 and I think we can get some better examples of aggressive people rather than Herr Hitler.

Also many of these examples could be explained better for people who aren't from a Ruby background. For instance, I think what you are saying applies to Java.

Finally, I think the best analogy that software has to people is that software has needs.

For instance, when I was doing the work to get a 1.5 hour build process down to 20 minutes, I was being asked to explain what benefit the customer got from this.

Well, the length of the build process has a lot to do with if the customer gets the product at all. If the software is going to take care of the customer, it needs whatever it needs t do that.</comment>


The Unwelcoming Chair - <AUTHOR> http://www.dadhacker.com/blog/?p=1291

<comment><USER2> I solved a similar problem in my teens:

I had seven siblings, and I kept my bedroom clean and quiet, as a sort of sanctuary. This made my siblings want to hang out there, which defeated the purpose. So I rearranged my furniture: I used my bed and dresser to make a narrow entry, I raised my bed just high enough that it was uncomfortable to sit on the edge for long periods of time, and I made sure my recliner had piles of school papers (which my siblings wouldn't dare move) tenuously balanced on both armrests.

As long as I was occupying my desk/computer chair, nobody else wanted to spend more than a few minutes in my room. If I wanted to hang out with a sibling, all I had to do was let them sit in the desk chair, and I could sit in the recliner. If I wanted to hang out with several siblings, I could push my bed aside so they could fit their own chairs through.</comment>


Glitch: Flickr's Stewart Butterfield Explains His Ambitious Online Game - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/02/12/glitch-interview/

<comment><USER2> _"... What are the system requirements?: A web browser with Flash installed, on pretty much any computer purchased in the last few years. ..."_ from ~ <http://glitch.com/>

Oops ~ <http://www.google.com/search?q=flash+ipad+iphone>

<comment><USER3> They should be developing this in Unity. You can publish to Win, Mac, all major browsers, and iPhone/iPad. Not only that, you get actual 3d rendering support, including PhysX, and a nice content pipeline.

<comment><USER4> How would Unity integrate with Facebook, and send SMS messages?

<comment><USER3> Unity publishes web apps. I assume you could embed them in any web content, including FB, however, you'd need your users to install a Unity browser plugin.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startup failures are only a matter of point of view - <AUTHOR> https://thomasthelliez.com/blog/2019/12/06/startup-failures-are-only-a-matter-of-point-of-view/ <comment><USER2> This article proposes thinking of yourself as a neural network learning something.

Funny enough, I find pretending I'm a self-driving car helps remove my ego while driving. Someone wants to speed up to cut me off? I'm not going to get angry. I'm a self-driving car algorithm, and I only care about doing the safest, most predictable thing.

It looks incredibly silly when I write it out like that but it actually helps to think that way.

<comment><USER3> I have another way of dealing with road rage. I am overly empathetic and give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Someone cuts me off in traffic? Whoa, they must be in a hurry to take a risk like that. I wonder if they have a very important meeting.

<comment><USER4> I take the view that all other drivers are potentially an off-duty policeman, a mad axe murderer who knows where I live or a confused little old lady.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree with the notion of learning from your mistakes, but it's so disingenuous I'd call it bullshit to say it's not a failure. The startup failed. That doesn't mean you're a failure. But don't sugarcoat what happened for the sake of your feelings. If you can't even admit it's a failure, you're not likely to learn from your failures.

Yes, I realize there is a lot of semantics in my point, but I just fucking hate sanitizing communication. Be direct. Be transparent. Say what you mean. Don't turn it into some feel-good what-a-wonderful-journey bullshit.

<comment><USER6> _Is_ it a failure?

"Had fun, blew a whole load of VC money!" doesn't sound like a bad time to me, personally, a person who is fully aware that statement is going to reflect poorly on my record.

<comment><USER7> So that was the goal then?

<comment><USER8> live well another day?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If a startup is trying to create economic value, then there is no point of view. You either made money or you did not.

If the real startup is the friends we made along the way while spending investor cash, then sure.

<comment><USER10> Are most startups created for economic value? That doesn't track with me at all, as a founder, and having talked with many others.

Most are doing it because it's just their kinda work, that's how they like to operate.

<comment><USER9> I guess my questions would be

1\. "what exactly do these founders believe they are starting up?"

2\. "if they aren't trying to create a sustainable business, how could they recruit employees with a clear conscience?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, we should try to learn from our failures, but this article overlooks the very real emotional and economic damage that can happen to early-stage founders and employees (and their families/friends). Even when trying to view failures as learning opportunities.

Source: I've been a part of many early stage startups, am working on one right now, and have many close friends who have done the same.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's indeed a point of view. If I factor in the opportunity cost of my failures it's even greater and harsher.

The article paints is a hooray-optimist view of praising failure as learning which might help someone who just folded its dream startup, but offers no revelation.

It also fails to mention that you can keep trying as long as you have money. Few privileged people can spend its life trying to build startups and fail constantly.

</comment><comment><USER13> That failure can be a teachable moment is well-known and is applicable in all aspects of life, it is not particularly interesting to read about that in this specific context. In some ways, it is also insulting.

For some there are real-world (often financial) consequences to failure, and that an article about why their egos shouldn't be bruised when facing a failure is the least of their worries.

</comment><comment><USER14> The key is failing successfully. Try hard. Ask lots of questions. Be humble. After all of that you can still fail.

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life".

</comment><comment><USER15> No one should be proud of failing and learning from their own mistakes if they did not bother learning from the mistakes of others first.

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been struggling with motivation in recent months so have been writing todo lists as a way to stay on task. One technique that has been helping is to write all steps, even when I don't know how to do some of them yet. Normally I do the opposite and only start working after I've solved the entire problem in my head (which sounds crazy but worked up until I hit 40 and bigger life questions added too much distraction).

Anyway, what if some failures are unavoidable? Like, what if some things are external to what you can anticipate or accomplish? For example, here is a todo list for a typical startup:

1) Learn the tools so you can make stuff

2) Optionally find a handful of teammates with similar interests or pain points to help

3) Get funding

4) Work on your startup for 6 months to 2 years

5) Get traction by hard sells or going viral

6) Scale by improving the product, adding employees, etc

7) Exit and move on to the next startup or retire with millions of dollars

There is currently no solution for steps 3 or 5. The rest of the steps are straightforward and done by most software developers in one form or another dozens of times over a career (except for 7 obviously). Most people on the outside only see steps 2, 6 and 7 so have a distorted view of the startup process because those tend to be the easiest steps or take care of themselves after the startup acquires a life of its own. On top of that, they may only dream about startups because step 1 tends to depend on demographics. Step 4 (the part we care about because it's our lifestyle so we'd almost do it for free) tends to be the least important, but also the riskiest because your idea will manifest when someone else does it after the 2 years window of opportunity passes.

So as far as I can tell 20 years into my career, until we solve steps 3 and 5, startup failure will hover around 90% or more. Learning from mistakes only eats away slightly at that number, perhaps by giving people more of what they want in step 5, or expanding your professional network for steps 2 and 7. So the smart thing to do is play it safe contracting or working for companies, never accomplishing anything of any importance other than making rent or raising children like humans have done for thousands of years.

So since it's Friday, I'd like to put out a thought to meditate on that maybe we should be trying to make a startup to solve startups, along the same lines as what Y Combinator is doing.

</comment><comment><USER17> In theory, yes. In practice, startups fail for common reasons. If you want to start a company, talk to every startup founder you can about their experience. It really is a different life path.

</comment><comment><USER18> I get the point, but this is pretty heavy on cliches.

Also, when a startup fails, a bunch of people lose their jobs and have to scramble to get their lives back on track. If an entrepreneur walks away from that saying "That wasn't a failure becayse I learned a lot!" they kind of come off as a sociopath.</comment>


Huawei Announces OpenHarmony Project with BSD-Licensed HarmonyOS Source-Code - <AUTHOR> https://linuxreviews.org/Huawei_Announces_OpenHarmony_Project_With_A_BSD-Licensed_HarmonyOS_Source_Code_Release <comment><USER2> > Open

Until they gain enough market share and decide to close it, just as with phone bootloaders: [https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-bootloader- unlocking...](https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-bootloader- unlocking-869169/)</comment>


Modern C++ isn't memory safe, either - <AUTHOR> https://neosmart.net/blog/2018/modern-c-isnt-memory-safe/#rf1-4403 <comment><USER2> Summary: iambdas introduce a novel way to make a classic C++ error, returning references or pointers to stack variables, so you should be scared away from all pointers and references, at which point you might as well use Rust.

Compassion for this sort of hurt feelings doesn't extend to writing articles about them.</comment>


Robert Graves: The Reluctant First World War Poet - <AUTHOR> https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/08/robert-graves-reluctant-first-world-war-poet <comment><USER2> Highly recommend Goodbye to All That, his memoirs. One of the best books written on the first world war from the perspectives of someone actually fighting it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good- Bye_to_All_That](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good-Bye_to_All_That)

<comment><USER3> Might I suggest Paul Fussell's _The Great War and Modern Memory_ to those interested in (mostly English) writing about WW I?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Graves makes a (not unflattering) cameo appearance in Sassoon's novel _Memoirs of an Infantry Officer_ as "Owen Cromlech". I believe Sassoon would have had a chance to read _Goodbye to All That_ before he published the novel.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nothing about "I, Claudius"...?

<comment><USER3> When he died, somebody quoted a statement of his to the effect that the novels were show dogs he bred to support his cat, poetry.

<comment><USER5> Those were some show dogs. I Claudius and Claudius The God were the first books that made the Romans come alive for me.

I honestly never knew he was known for poetry, and this article makes me want to go take a look.</comment></comment></comment>


What CSS Needs: Granular Positioning - <AUTHOR> http://coderwall.com/p/i3krxa

<comment><USER2> You can center fixed positioned elements in CSS already like so:

      #mydiv {
        position: fixed;
        left: 50%;
        margin-left: (pixel offset relative from center of page)
      }

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd also like to see commonly JSed scenarios supported in CSS like toggles, slides, solid positioning</comment>


Terradata ( database ) running on SSD ( 55,000 IOPS ) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/19/teradata_blurr/

<comment><USER2> What weird writing:

 _Blurr is four times less cheap than the comparable rotating disk appliance from Teradata. But then it is an astonishing eight times less slow._

<comment><AUTHOR> Im going to have to say your quoting that line a little out of context.

When I first read the article, the time I got to "slow" I was wondering what I had just read. Yet the very next paragraph helps demystify the jargon.

At that point, I realised the writer was playing with the jargon and hype but in a satirical way.</comment></comment>


Skara Brae – Discovery and Excavation of Orkney's finest Neolithic Settlement - <AUTHOR> http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/skarabrae/ <comment><USER2> I spent a lot of time in the guild hall there recruiting members to my party between trips to the dungeon[1] :-).

Definitely on a list of interesting places to visit, and it amazes me that places like this were occupied for 600 years and then abandoned long before what I think of as ancient times. How did folks develop the techniques for building these sorts of structures? Some sort of stone age think tank? It is really amazing when you think about it.

[1] This was the city in The Bards Tale which I played all the way to the end, back in the day.

<comment><USER3> Skara Brae also features in some of the Ultima games. Supposedly both companies hired the same consultant who provided some of the same naming ideas to both customers - oops!

<comment><USER4> Yup, my long history of playing Ultima and in particular UO was what made me go 'oh, so THAT'S where they got the name!'. It's nice to see how these fantasy worlds tie back to our own in inspiration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another really amazing spot on Orkney is Maeshowe, it's a neolithic cairn (from ~3000 BC) but Vikings in the 12th century looted and desecrated it with a bunch of runic graffiti [1]. It's really cool to experience two facets of history in the same location but millennia apart.

[1] [http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/maeshowe/maeshrunes.htm](http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/maeshowe/maeshrunes.htm)

<comment><USER6> There's some wonderful prehistory in the Orkneys. When I was a little kid (1950) Skara Brae was just open to run around; my sis played house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A story more interesting than the title might first suggest.

 _" On the far curving shore of the bay lies Skara Brae, hazy through the sea- haar." George Mackay Brown - Rockpools and Daffodils_

</comment><comment><USER8> As part of our work in deploying the Natick datacenter to the Orkneys, we had the opportunity to visit Skara Brae, as well as the other Neolithic sites. It is a truly amazing place and the size of the civilization in the Orkneys at that early stage is really incredible.

</comment><comment><USER9> Visited it a couple of years ago, really nice to see. Bit of a Flintstones feeling, with stone beds and cupboards.

I was impressed by it, but one should not forget that at the same time this was built the Great Pyramid was already 300 years old.

<comment><USER10> Wikipedia disagrees. Skara Brae was occupied about 3190 BC. Earliest Egyptian pyramids were started about 2630. The Great Pyramid was built about 2560 BC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> ...and I just learned that Richard Garriott named his island city after something real.

<comment><USER12> Funny how that name takes me back to memories of a game...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Lived in orkney since I was born, 19 years ago, it's amazing how much we don't appreciate what's outside our doors around Orkney all the time :-)

<comment><USER14> I've been visiting my in-laws (who live just outside of Kirkwall in St Ola) almost twice a year for 20 years now, and I still haven't become used to how lovely Orkney is. Even got married in Kirkwall. There's a high possibility we'll retire back there when the time comes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Recently visited Lepenski Vir, oldest urban setlement known in Europe. [http://www.serbia.com/visit-serbia/cultural- attractions/arch...](http://www.serbia.com/visit-serbia/cultural- attractions/archaeological-sites/lepenski-vir-the-oldest-urban-settlement-in- europe/) Highly recommended for anybody interested into dawn of civilisation

</comment><comment><USER16> I was really really hoping this post would be something Bard's Tale related.

<comment><USER17> Or Ultima!

<comment><USER18> Oh man, we make ourselves so obvious. I was here for the Ultima Online reference as well. There's something Baudrillardian here about the simulation and the simulacra.</comment></comment></comment>


How Doug Engelbart Pulled Off the Mother of All Demos - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/how-doug-engelbart-pulled-off-the-mother-of-all-demos/ <comment><USER2> > Paxton: At the time 90 percent of the people thought he was a crackpot, that > this "interactive" idea was a waste of time, and that this wasn't really > going anywhere, and that the really good stuff was artificial intelligence . > . . There were a few people like Bob Taylor who picked up on the idea. And > it eventually fed out into Xerox PARC and then Apple to take over the world. > But, at the time, Doug was a voice crying into the wilderness.

</comment><comment><USER2> > Bill Paxton: (colleague at the Augmentation Research Center, who > participated in the demo) Remember—put yourself back. This was a group, an > entire group, sharing a computer that is roughly as powerful . . . If you > measure computing power in iPhones, it was a milli-iPhone. It was one one- > thousandth of an iPhone that this group was using for 10 people. It was > nuts! These guys did absolute miracles.</comment>


Tell HN: Posterous/Tumblr is not the easiest way to post anything. - <AUTHOR>

(Disclaimer: I'm not an early adopter).
I went to Tumblr for the first time just then, expecting to find a text box with a post button and nothing else. I expected to be able to type in my post, press <enter> and it be published to the net with a URL.
Neither posterous nor tumblr does this.
Instead I must type in an email (I don't want to sign up), close about half a dozen popup boxes (tumblr), navigate to the relevant page, before I can even construct my post.
This is not the easiest way to post. Sure, it may be easier than anything else available. But if anyone is interested in actually making the easiest way to post, here's an idea: how about a text-area box with a "post" button.
</pointless rant> <comment><USER2> You don't have to sign up every time you post, just the first time.

Posterous doesn't even need a sign up. You can actually just start posting by typing in a text-area with a post button - your email client that you already use.

If you know of an easier way, I'd honestly like to know about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> It wouldn't be associated with an authenticated user, though, so you wouldn't be able to show other posts by a given author...

Why not just use pastebin or something?

</comment><comment><USER4> If you lower the effort it takes to post to that extent, how would you stop the site from turning into a massive spam fest?</comment>


Need help understanding Adwords Traffic Estimator data - <AUTHOR>

I have entered the maximum value for CPC as $100, the maximum that is allowed by adwords. For some of my keywords, estimated daily clicks is zero. but however, local monthly searches, estimated avg. CPC, and estimated daily costs are not zero. Some of the keywords with estimated daily clicks of zero has quite high values for the other parameters. Could you please explain what this data implies? Should I remove this words from my campaign? Also, I don't know how much max daily budget to set. I want to set it at $20, but that results in very few estimated daily clicks. Thank you in advance. <comment><USER2> I think it means that Google isn't going to be showing your ads for that keyword. It is likely due to your ad being given a poor quality score for that keyword. There should be something that shows your quality score for each keyword and my guess is for those keywords for which you have an estimated traffic of zero, your score is quite low.

<comment><AUTHOR> But I haven't activated my campaign yet. Can google assign a quality score when you are just creating your campaign?

<comment><USER2> I think they might.</comment></comment></comment>


BMW MINI Teams Up With HAX to Build NYC Accelerator Focused on Connected Cities - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/15/bmw-mini-teams-up-with-hax-to-build-a-nyc-accelerator-focused-on-connected-cities-of-the-future/ <comment><USER2> Seems like BMW is following in the footsteps of Ford and partnering up with an accelerator to focus urban mobility. Its really interesting that the major automotive companies are being serious about investments into alternatives to the vehicles they produce.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best solution is for people to move closer to work, ditch their cars, and for pedestrians to reclaim the roads (and narrow them considerably). Seriously.

</comment><comment><USER4> "MINI and HAX will give $60,000 in equity to each startup in the three-month program and tells TechCrunch it could further invest in the strongest ideas."

That doesn't sound quite right. I'm assuming this means $60k in exchange for equity (how much?) in each startup?

<comment><USER5> I'm sure that's right about in exchange for equity.

MINI and HAX would probably want to shy away from from having a sidecar fund. This would most likely lead to investors only investing in the companies that MINI/HAX have clear interests in or would just wait for an investment in MINI/HAX.</comment></comment>