Banjo Tooie for N64 finally cracked - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3118 <comment><USER2> The encryption algo:

[https://docs.google.com/viewer?pid=explorer&srcid=0Bz16_...](https://docs.google.com/viewer?pid=explorer&srcid=0Bz16_qdX0WIZSTVGSnBxeGstNGM&docid=517e737b0ccd07a76ee7abc863e7d923%7C5ad2bd8827a046134b30bf3902cdc58e&chan=EAAAAEE%2BVhIU6/3OGe73DwvASBIiRBAXReo/1/aClWvsTHtX&a=v&rel=zip;z4;n64_cic_nus_6105.c)

</comment><comment><USER3> One cool thing: looking thru the README it looks like they ended up fixing a part of Banjo Tooie that had always broken before due to the challenge/response being encoded wrong in one case.

</comment><comment><USER4> I guess the DRM was strong enough for this product, it's past its shelf life now. Or is this a case of no one really wanting to pirate the game badly enough to put in the effort to crack it?

<comment><USER5> The real "DRM" of that game were the cartridges - even if you cracked the same, you couldn't burn it to a CD like the Playstation games, and N64 emulation on PCs was mostly a pipe dream at the time.

<comment><USER6> UltraHLE (N64 emulator on PCs) came out in 1999 [1] Banjo-Tooie - came out in 2000 [2] And yes, there had already been Internet at that time too.

N64 game cracks were desirable even without emulation though. There had been "universal" carts (e.g. Doctor V64) that would enable running a game image on a retail console.

[1]<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraHLE> [2]<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo_Tooie>

<comment><USER7> It was a much smaller scene though, nothing like game carts for the GBA or DS.

<comment><USER6> It was. Yet not that much smaller to dismiss this is as a good counter example to the claims that every DRM will be cracked immediately and if something is not cracked then it just means there is zero interest in crack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This has me interested, what did this protection actually preclude? What's possible now that it's cracked?

I know 1964 and Project64 could already play BanjoTooie (Although I think with some crashes) so if wasn't detecting flashing or emulation what was it doing? Or if it was, how did these emulators get around it without the specific game being "cracked"?

Or is it just the sort of thing an emulator...emulates?

<comment><USER9> I believe it's useful for the flashcard scene. All current Nintendo 64 flash cards (64Drive, everdrive64 etc) require a hardware CIC chip. I believe there's a different lockout chip between NTSC, PAL and certain games like Jet Force Gemini.

All flashcards have either the CIC required to be soldered on (destroying some genuine N64 game) or has a port for a cartridge to be plugged in (so the CIC maybe accessed non-destructively).

Once the lockout algorithm is discovered, they possibly no longer need the dedicated chip. (not sure about this part)

<comment><USER8> Cool. It's funny to think there's still an active N64 flashcard user base, since emulation for the N64 has always been pretty decent. My first foray into console hacks was with thick first gen PS2's, and all the ones I've bought over the years have basically died of old age, even with manual maintenance and cleaning, so I sort of stopped caring about the hardware. Makes sense that the older consoles with a longer shelf life would still have a lot of people who care about the real hardware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I read the size allocation for the static arrays, and they set the size in hex 0x10 rather than just 16, my mind always blows up because it is amazing how people in the emulator / virtualization world work so much with hex they probably can think it like decimal.

</comment><comment><USER11> does this mean we can finally do something with those eggs, the key, and the door in the desert?

<comment><USER12> I think they implemented the stop'n'swop functionality on the xbox live arcade versions, did they not?

<comment><USER13> They did. Kinda ruined the fun of it though. Who remembers when those people extracted the debug codes from the ROM that let you actually get the eggs, on the n64 version? It was years after the game came out iirc.

I must admit I also clicked the link expecting something to do with eggs and crystal keys.

<comment><USER14> > Who remembers when those people extracted the debug codes from the ROM that > let you actually get the eggs, on the n64 version?

I'm so glad somebody else remembers that.

It was years after the game came out, and was perhaps just a side-note in the videogames magazines, meaning that nobody believed my childhood self when I claimed to finally obtain the eggs.

FYI a spiritual successor to _B-K_ appears to be in very early stages of development. <https://twitter.com/MingyJongo>

<comment> dav-id I do hope there is another Banjo Kazooie - not the nuts and bolts kind but a classic platformer even if it is not published by Rare I would still love to see it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Now if they just get the ability to emulate SW: Rogue Squadron and Donkey Kong 64, I could die a happy man...

</comment><comment><USER16> FINALLY!

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting article.</comment>


Tesla Says It Is Testing an Electric Car Prototype for Toyota - <AUTHOR> http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/tesla-says-it-is-testing-an-electric-car-prototype-for-toyota/?src=twr

<comment><USER2> So, to go along with this, has anyone been successful at building a charger for an electric car that could be used to replace a gas pump (safe in weather, 80 - 100% charge in under 8 minutes)?

<comment><USER3> Yes. You simply swap the battery out for one that is already charged. The model works where the person owns the car but effectively leases the battery, so your fee at the station includes the battery "rental" and the delta in its charge. <http://www.betterplace.com/>

<comment><USER2> I can swap the batteries in under the amount of time it would take me to fill a tank of gas (around 8 minutes avg)?

<comment><USER4> If it's _made_ to be swapped out? Yes. Grab handle & pull. Drop in replacement.

<comment><USER5> Problem: the batteries on a Tesla Roadster weigh about 400 lb. Have fun lifting that!

If you want a battery that one man (or more to the point, one woman) can lift, you'll have to settle for a drastically reduced range.

Alternatively, you could have twenty easily-removed 20 lb batteries to swap out. It'd still be a bit of a workout, and beyond the capabilities of your average grandmother.

<comment><USER6> Apparently you're not an engineer!

Here's my proposed solution based on current technology and about 10 seconds thinking about the problem:

\- Battery is in an externally accessed compartment mounted on a sled with a pair of clips.

\- Driver opens compartment door and backs into "battery loading bay" at gas station.

\- Clips engage matching latches that sense battery and extract it from car, then rotates a new, charged one in place and loads it.

\- Driver pays and drives off.

None of this is more complicated than filling up your car with gas and the mechanisms are cheap and easy to build.

<comment><USER5> Hey, I never said there weren't solutions, I just wanted to point out the problem in the parent's "pick it up by the handle" approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know how much the first electric car GM put out cost to build?

<comment><USER8> If you mean the EV1, it worked out to somewhere between $80K-100K per vehicle due to the small number of vehicles produced. Keep in mind that there was no way to _buy_ an EV1 (it was lease-only) and that only 1117 of them were ever produced despite a never-empty waiting list. Seems GM never found a battery pack that priced in at anywhere near the same level as a stamped gas tank, so the margins were lower than they had hoped for...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Has this had any effect on their stock yet?

<comment><USER10> Up 0.49 as of 1:11 EDT.

[edit] Now it's up 1.27 as of 3:03.

[http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:TSLA](http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:TSLA)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use for 2FA? - <AUTHOR> I've always used Google Authenticator but recently starting using Authy as well. What does everyone use and why? <comment><USER2> I use [https://code.google.com/p/motp/](https://code.google.com/p/motp/) for 2FA. Google Authenticator used to be open source, but is not anymore. That frustrates me.</comment>


Ask HN: What are you using to read scientific papers? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a pdf reader like, but with folders sorting and a research engine. Maybe with even more interesting features, what are your suggestions? <comment><USER2> To read papers, I use a standard PDF viewer (or image viewer, for some old papers which I've scanned in).

To organize papers, I use Zotero. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_manage...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_reference_management_software) has a long list of reference management software, some of which have modified PDF readers which allow, for example, user annotations.</comment>


Ask HN: Online Certs and Degrees Help - <AUTHOR> Greetings fellow HNers. I spend about half of every day volunteering time assisting disadvantaged teens and young adults here in Las Vegas.
They are time, travel, and resource constrained which usually causes an impediment to further learning. I need help compiling a list for them of online learning resources that results in something that an employer will value.
Thank you! <comment><USER2> Online certifications and degrees are of exceedingly low value, and are often outright scams, unless the online degree is from an accredited university and is indistinguishable from any other degree offered.

Immersive coding boot camps, as much as I dislike the idea, do have value. If someone attends an in-person, full-time (40 hours a week for 12 weeks) bootcamp, from a reputable provider, that can actually lead to a job.

For young people, and those of limited means, I'd stop worrying about certifications and simply help them learn. Plenty of online resources are cheap and valuable, like udemy.com (to name one; there are many good ones). It's a good way to get started part-time. They can learn the basics at their own pace. They'll learn skills that employers will value, although it's unlikely to lead directly to a job.

No one should invest any serious money in education until they know if they like it and have the aptitude.</comment>


What Raising Money Means To Me - <AUTHOR> http://www.quirky.com/blog/post/2012/09/what-raising-money-means-to-me/ <comment><USER2> TL;DR:

Initially raised some money and then reality set in as we didn't have a product. Whoops! This made me learn a handful of lessons about humility and not claiming that you're a big fucking deal. Don't boast about funding; it's disgusting and only startup fuckers do that.

We raised a $68 million round C! Check out our linked press release! Not just that, but we scored the best VC firms in the industry: Andreessen Horowitz and KPCB. They add on top of our existing funders Norwest & RRE. And we have amazing people joining our board.

We're proud that this investment is going to let us follow our vision and execute on our plans. In humility, of course. We're not startup fuckers who boast about a round of financing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Prediction: We will see many more fundraising announcements that lead with self-depreciation. Modesty is back in style.

Nevertheless, it's a PR stunt. Aside from the truism that "raising money is not success", there wasn't any content of value. If you still need that message, you haven't been reading HN very carefully.

</comment><comment><USER4> I was lucky enough to speak with Ben last fall and hear this story in person (minus raising their C round). I was also lucky enough to see their new offices in NYC.

My take away is that Ben is one of the most genuine people I have met who has learned some very important lessons and mistakes that he is willing to share. This is a trait that I have seen is great leaders of companies. Quarky is a company that is really thinking outside the box.

People reading HN are not their target demographic, their target demographic spends money on appliances and home nicknacks. Quarky is essentially a self contained Kickstarter, where they are vertically integrated. They sell products before they are made, but have the capability to crank out the products once their order goal is met.

My takeaway from this blog post is that Ben has been humbled by his experiences and is willing to share those with other people. This is most likely one reason why he has been extremely successful with Quarky and has raised money from some of the best VCs in the business.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is the best fund raising announcement blog post I have read. I like how it starts out with putting fundraising in perspective, it is part of the journey and not the accomplishment.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nail on the head - I wish the startup press would do stories on companies 12 months after they send out fundraising PR.

I also wish the startup press would stop romanticizing startup weekends, buses, trains, planes and boats.

</comment><comment><USER7> This guy knows what fundraising really means. Great article. Everyone should read it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks for writing this Ben Kaufman! I gained by you sharing your experience.

</comment><comment><USER9> This should be required reading for anybody interested in startups.</comment>


Will.i.am becomes Intel's Director of Creative Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2011/01/25/intel-teams-with-william-black-eyed-peas-front-man

<comment><AUTHOR> "I remember like 10 yrs ago rendering would take forever... we would say is it done yet? ... now it's like instant render."

</comment><comment><USER2> I watched the video, he's basically a consultant for their marketing team.

More interestingly, this implies that Intel will be increasing their consumer oriented marketing. To me that says they're going to be ambitous about media and Sandybridge.</comment>


All-you-can-eat study shows body copes well with one-off calorie indulgence - <AUTHOR> https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/all-you-can-eat-pizza-study-shows-body-copes-surprisingly-well-with-one-off-calorie-indulgence/ <comment><USER2> Some commenters here are misinterpreting the headline/article -- the study does NOT say you won't gain weight!

It mainly just says your blood sugar won't spike, which is entirely expected ("managed to keep the amount of nutrients in the bloodstream within normal range"). Emphasis added:

> "Specifically, those tested in this study were able to efficiently use _or > store_ the nutrients they ingested during the pizza-eating challenge, such > that the levels of sugar and fats in their blood were not much higher than > when they ate half as much food. The main problem with overeating is that it > _adds more stored energy to our bodies (in the form of fat)_..."

This just confirms the conventional understanding of how our bodies work. The raised insulin levels quickly convert excess blood sugar into glycogen and fat.

A lot of people seem to be misinterpreting this headline as meaning you won't gain weight from a single meal. This study does NOT support that conclusion!

</comment><comment><USER3> N = 14

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal- of-n...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of- nutrition/article/physiological-responses-to-maximal-eating-in- men/25C29D75CB1553B9D3D23E276295A4D8)

<comment><USER4> Sample size isn't as big of a deal-breaker as the layperson may think. If the mechanism of action is well understood and the potency of the effect is strong, you don't need a big sample size. For an extreme but apt example of this: how many people _really_ need to be beheaded to prove that it kills someone to a reasonable degree?

<comment><USER3> Wow, motte and bailey.

Hengist et al publish a toy paper where they fed 14 guys pizza and ran a blood panel. Sure, why not. Probably took an afternoon, and was real cheap to do, gave some of his grad students publication credits and LaTeX experience. We learn that eating a pizza will not instantly give you diabetes, or make you obese, which we already knew. This, by itself, is fine.

Separately, the University of Bath has a press office which is required to issue a certain number of press releases per year, even when the research isn't interesting. Again, no real problem. Plenty of press releases are issued with nobody ever reading them. If the University of Bath wants to employ people to do nothing useful, that's their own business.

This press release is submitted to HN and gets a bunch of upvotes. Problem. People in the comments try to generalize the study. Big problem!

The paper had _no_ followup, no dose schedule, tiny experimental groups... because it wasn't trying to solve obesity!

Nobody knows what's causing the obesity epidemic. There are many hypotheses, all with holes and strange contradictions. There have been many gigantic studies, all with inconclusive results.

There is no reliable way to lose weight.1 There are many diets that work for some people, all with holes and strange contradictions. There have been many gigantic studies, all with inconclusive results.

This is a nice little toy study. I don't doubt the data or the results. I just don't think it's useful. And studying obesity _certainly_ isn't like running a randomized clinical trial on if beheading will kill a person!

\---

1: Yes, if you lock someone in a cage and not give them food, they will lose weight. Obviously. Once you release them back into modern society, they will regain that weight.

<comment><USER5> >There is no reliable way to lose weight

Correct me if I'm wrong but that is false. It seems pretty well known and accepted that caloric intake below BMR will make you lose weight. Your BMR might fluctuate, but if you take that into account there shouldn't be a problem.

Going back into society and resuming your previous eating habits (before the cage) will ofc make you gain weight because your BMR will have lowered during your starvation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Hormones that are released by the gut to stimulate insulin secretion and > increase feelings of fullness were changed the most by overeating (e.g. > GLP-1 and peptide YY).

I wonder if people who chronically overeat (hello!) develop insensitivity to these hormones, leading to a cycle where it becomes harder to eat the correct amount. Similarly, I wonder if people who tend to eat too little are hyper- sensitive to them, making it hard to gain weight.

<comment><USER7> > I wonder if people who chronically overeat (hello!) develop insensitivity to > these hormones, leading to a cycle where it becomes harder to eat the > correct amount.

Sounds like Leptin Resistance. [0]

I wonder if I have that. When I see that my rather sedentary lifestyle means I'm only supposed to eat 2,000 calories a day, I don't see how the hell that's possible without constant hunger. Even if I eat a diet rich in protein and fiber, which is supposed to make me feel fuller longer, I'm still always hungry. I can eat a 20 oz ribeye with a large side of broccoli and wheat rolls (A meal that's likely 1500+ calories) and still be hungry in only 2-3 hours. If I eat something in the 600 calorie range, like a 10 oz chicken breast and veggies, I'll be hungry again in an hour, if I ever even feel full at all.

Meanwhile, I know a couple people that say "I eat like a lion and I can't gain weight!" then discover that they'll cook up an 8 oz filet and sides and be full without even eating it all.

[0] [https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/leptin-101](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/leptin-101)

<comment><USER8> As a fat-guy-turned-skinny-guy, I ask this most respectfully: Are you hungry or are you bored?

<comment><USER7> It's a perfectly valid question.

If it only happened while working, certainly I'd attribute it to being bored. But no, it happens even when I'm playing games with my friends and having a blast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can also find this anecdotally by talking to competitive eaters. They will almost all tell you that as long as you eat a regular amount of calories most days they have no problem with weight gain from binge eating once or twice a week. AKA there is there is a difference between eating 2000 calories 6 days a week and 6000 one day than eating 2500 calories 7 days a week.

<comment><USER10> I have always wanted to see that idea studied. Is it possible? Any further reading?

It certainly violates calories in/calories out. But I'm ok with that. We're not steam engines.

<comment><USER11> Your body isn't able to adequately digest binges

<comment><USER10> I wonder why though. And if it's proven. Maybe there's a maximum rate of fat storage and any extra calories just pass through?

Can your intestines stop adding sugar to your bloodstream?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It shouldn't be terribly surprising that we do OK with "feast and famine", especially if you're young. I remember being 16 and eating an entire large NY pizza for an afternoon snack before dinner...

I assert without proof that it's the all-feast-all-the-time dietary novelty for most of humanity in the last, oh, 200 years that probably throws a spanner in the works.

<comment><USER13> Another complication is that most of our ancestors would probably only have been "feasting" on meat - there wouldn't have been any bread, sugar, palm oil, etc. in the mix.

<comment><USER12> that's at best a very contentious claim. Midden heaps tend to preserve bones longer than carrot-tops, though, which certainly skews the record.

Certainly the vast majority of humanity throughout _written_ history -- numerically, the bulk of our ancestry -- has subsisted primarily on non-meat foods, be they wheat, barley, maize, or whatever. Peasants were not regularly eating meat; often we have the written record to point to for that, as well as archaeological evidence from grave finds and the like.

and my usual critique of "paleo" holds here, which is that it ignores evolution. As a species, we've evolved the persistence of digesting lactose at least twice, in independent subgroups, through two different metabolic pathways, so it's not like we're incapable of getting used to dietary shifts over the span of human history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "The researchers acknowledge that their study involved healthy young men, so they plan to investigate whether similar effects are apparent in women, and for overweight and older populations."

<comment><USER15> By definition this would be hard to test with an overweight population. The reason they're overweight is because their calorie indulgence is not one-off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's called homeostasis. This is the reason why it's hard to lose weight and keep it off. Your body has "set points" that it creates, and it takes a consistent effort to push your body off of that set point and dig a groove into a different one.

</comment><comment><USER17> Body can only consume X amount of calories from the food you eat every day (just like any other process/machine it has its upper limit), and the rest will be thrown out without being digested. That's why short bursts of high calorie intake won't result anything more than the X amount. However reaching that upper limit everyday will add up to weight gain.

<comment><USER18> Source? I'm almost certain that's not true. The human body is fairly stingy about sending digestible calories out as waste.

<comment><USER19> I was wondering about this myself for some time now. I haven't been able to find any research regarding the amount of food/energy/calories that human body is able to digest.

For example: I eat 10 buns with butter. How much of this food will be digested by my body and how much will 'go through' and not be converted into energy? What's the ratio? Is there even a ratio or everything we eat we eventually digest?

<comment><USER18> Dietary fiber is known to be largely undigested, (the microbes in your intestine will feed off of them). Your body is really efficient at pulling nutrients from simple carbohydrates and fats. I forget what happens to excess protein though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Four hours after eating maximally, the participants [...] reported no desire > to eat anything else, including sweet foods. This was surprising because > reward centres in the brain are usually food specific, so eating pizza might > not be expected to change the desire for sweet food.

No it's not surprising because - whether it's contrary or not the neurodrivel "reward centres in the brain" i'm not sure - as an adult you know that craving for a specific food item is entirely a high-level construction in your psychology to do with the story you're telling yourself about what it will mean to eat that, etc. and you should have experienced that it will go away as soon as you eat enough of anything else.

<comment><USER21> Sweet foods work differently in our brains though [0], it is surprising that people would reject sweet foods in that case.

[0] [https://particle.scitech.org.au/food/always-have-room-for- de...](https://particle.scitech.org.au/food/always-have-room-for-dessert- heres-why/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is this really that interesting? Overeating doesn't appear to affect blood sugar beyond regular eating in healthy adults - seems normal to me. Lipids didn't spike after a single meal - also seems normal. All they found is that these are linear up to the point of satiety and then the body's hormones keep levels in check beyond that.

<comment><USER6> Why this anti-intellectualism? Are studies only worth doing or reading if you personally find the results surprising? If we don't have data about something, we should get it, rather than just assuming our intuitions are correct.

<comment><USER22> I'm not being, or at least intending to be, anti-intellectual. I do think that a study confirming something this obvious is not notable or interesting enough to be at the top of HN though

<comment><USER23> I personally agree that you're not being anti-intellectual, and that your original question was valid.

That said, I think there's huge value in studies that scientifically validate things we believe to be true to 'common knowledge' (because often common knowledge is totally wrong), which justifies this study being at the top of HN.

<comment><USER24> Considering how little we actually understand scientifically about these processes, nearly any good study (not a judgement on this paper) would seem to be worth doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have AYCE sushi scheduled monthly as part of lifting routine, and notice overcompensation that day has no real long term consequences. Body will either eat less or shit more in the following days. I track calories as well and will definitely end the week with AYCE surplus, which never makes it to scale weight.

<comment><USER26> Do you notice water gain?

Back when I worked out 6 days a week, cardio and weights, I'd do the binge meal for one dinner a week. I'd eat whatever the heck I wanted and have a beer or two. It was a good way to not feel like your depriving yourself.

That said, I'd usually notice the scale went up the next morning by 3-5 lbs. It was pretty much water weight from the carb overload and it went away after a couple days.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, a few days of incredible water bloat from extra carbs = exploit schedule for extra cushion on squat days.

Otherwise, all things normalized like calorie + pedometer for NEAT + morning weigh in trend suggest thousands of indulgence calories just goes straight the colon. If I spread the extra calories over weekdays, I will gain weight. If I skip fiber, the food will stay around (=more absorption?) and I will gain weight. I've also done big weekly binges a few years ago to similar affect. 6000 calories over 3-4 meals just doesn't account get registered on the scale at the end of the month. Had to stop due to heartburn :-/.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So are "one-off calorie indulgences" okay because they're smaller in scale than long term over eating, or because they're not frequent? In other words, is eating 3000 more calories for one meal, once per month worse/better/equal for you than eating 100 more calories every day?

<comment><USER28> I suspect that either your gut bacteria, or general homeostasis, don't make permanent changes based on one-off indulgences. I even think that bingeing gives you psychological safety to eat fewer calories -- your body "knows" it will catch up eventually, so it doesn't demand you get 2400 calories every single day. This is just my experience as someone who eats a full bag of Doritos/peanut butter cups every 3-5 days and got to middle age without getting fat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Add Brazilian Steakhouses to the list of anecdotes.

<comment><USER30> I really love going to Fogo de Chao, but it's hard not to overindulge. The worst I've ever felt in my life was after a trip to Fogo. An hour later I was still just sitting up straight on my couch trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt. Took a while before I went back again, and I had a lot more control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Young men can eat twice as much food as they need to feel 'full', research > shows.

I. AM. SHOCKED.

</comment><comment><USER32> This makes sense to me since early humans hunted large game. Also, feasting seems to be present in some form in almost all human cultures. If it really were harmful, I would expect some cultures to have figured that out.

</comment><comment><USER33> No surprise, TBH. For thousands of years prehistoric humans didn't eat similarly sized meals N times a day every day. They ate whenever and whatever they could hunt/catch. Which means huge meals after days/weeks of hunger only to have days/weeks of hunger again. No wonder our bodies are well adapted to such irregularities.

</comment><comment><USER10> It seems like this would be obvious. Why would one instance of overeating damage your metabolism?

<comment><USER34> A lot of things that seemed obvious at the time (spontaneous generation, geocentrism) didn't turn out to be true after being studied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Only twice as much? I'm quite surprised, when I used to go to AYCE buffets I could easily push it to 3-4 times to make it worth the money, twice as much would not be worth the money.

</comment><comment><USER36> Huh. So everything in moderation, including moderation.

</comment><comment><USER37> This was a big thing with Tim Ferris when he was making an argument for "cheat days". Personally, I also found cheat days to be effective when on a restrictive diet. I think he ended up actually weighing his poop to prove the point.

I did notice that I couldn't breakthrough some key weight loss levels without both cheat days and intermittent fasting, with the cheat days seeming counter- intuitive to me.

<comment><USER10> What point did he prove? I don't remember that part.</comment></comment>


Rocket Propellant from Lunar Soil - <AUTHOR> http://www.wickmanspacecraft.com/lsp.html <comment><USER2> I feel like the difficulty of obtaining rocket fuel on a given rocky planet is equivalent to within the limits of napkin math. I've never heard a particularly convincing argument for using the Moon as a springboard to the wider universe as opposed to Mars or Venus. Perhaps someone could offer some correction.

<comment><USER3> The lower gravity and lack of oxygen make launching things with maglev sleds into orbit feasible. There have been a number of studies of a launch rail with a reusable 'bucket' carrier that would be built along an incline for a suitable orbit. The bucket would be accelerated electromagnetically along the rail, imparting sufficient energy to put the contents of the bucket into orbit which would be circularized at apogee with a small rocket burn. The rail would be powered by an array of solar panels and batteries, or possibly a flywheel similarly to the way the EMALS[1] system was designed.

Landing is the challenge on the moon as there isn't anything to push against or dump energy into. I don't know if anyone has considered a space elevator, I expect keeping it in position would be a challenge given the orbital dynamics involved.

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

<comment><USER4> You could create a semi atmosphere- by Electrically Blowing Up Sand? Sort of like simulating Atmosphere with a shotgun blast?

<comment><USER3> If you are asking whether or not you should somehow accelerate lunar regolith upward and use it to decelerate an incoming lander, then yes you probably could. Although it would no doubt cause damage to the landing craft much as an atmosphere braked entry 'burns up' the heat shield of a landing craft. Further the dust contains a lot of aluminum silica and that is essentially sand paper so you would get a _lot_ of abrasion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> 52-6F-62 I found Wickman's story pretty interesting! Thanks for posting.

There was a lot of interesting info on there besides this post. Ahem -- the post itself was really interesting -- reminds me of how little I know in spite of my interest in space. Gotta get on that!

</comment><comment><USER5> You may also find LANTR (LOX-Augmented Nuclear Thermal Rocket) interesting:

[http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/LANTR.html](http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/LANTR.html)

LANTR is still assuming that hydrogen is supplied from earth, but it's performance as a rocket fuel is magnified by using it in a hybrid nuclear thermal/chemical rocket, where the the LOX is supplied from the moon.

</comment><comment><USER6> "aluminum powder in gelled LOX"

Sounds interesting. I wonder if a hybrid engine would work also. i.e. solid compressed aluminium powder with LOX.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder- if a planet continuously lost atmosphere of the aeons, shouldn't there be a small swirl of gas spiraling out from that planet?

If that is the case, wouldn't it be enough to have a ram-scoop satellite harvesting it?

<comment><USER7> I assume you are talking about Mars? It's not in space in isolation. Solar wind has been blasting away the atmosphere for aeons. So it's probably intermingled with solar wind across the trail of the solar system.</comment></comment>


Windows Azure Website Redesign - More emphasis on Node.js, PHP and Java support - <AUTHOR> http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/downloads/

<comment><USER2> A couple months back, they ran a two-page piece on the Brazilian edition of Linux Magazine, advertising their support for a language called "PHYTON".

[http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/imagens/phyton_on_azure.jpg/...](http://www.dieblinkenlights.com/imagens/phyton_on_azure.jpg/view)

Could be an acronym for Powerful Hack that Yields Things that are Outstandingly Neat. Os something like it.

Note: the agency who made the ad tried to recall the magazines, but, by the time they noticed it was way too late.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm really surprised by their pricing:

<http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/>

Drag each of those sliders even one notch off the ground and you're looking at $600+/month. Our two fully licensed Windows boxes, taking up half a cage at a datacenter cost less than that, all in.

Coming from a backround of using Amazon's cloud stuff, I'm used to it being relatively cheap, or at least not insane. I can't imagine a real-world use case for a service like Azure if that's what it costs just to get off the ground.

<comment><USER4> I hardly see how that's the case? $90/small vm, $10/gb db, $7/50gb storage, $3/20gb bw. $109.99/month. ???

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Explicit node.js support shouldn't be surprising at all, given that MS funded the Windows port and JS is a first-class language for W8.

Java, OTOH, caught me off guard. I'd have thought MS was totally done with Java given that it's a direct threat to .NET (and previous "disagreements" w/ Sun). Then again, they don't have much of a choice but to support whatever they can if they want to compete with Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER6> 96pt Arial everywhere. Yup, they're serious about this.

<comment><USER7> Does the font used actually matter? In my opinion I quite like how it looks, regardless of the font used.

<comment><USER6> I'm not complaining about the use of Arial, it's that trendy Really Massive Sans Serif Headline on the landing page look: they're trying to make Node/RoR/etc. devs feel at home.

<comment><USER8> I think this is kind of a good thing for M$ since it really seemed like they were having a hard time "getting it" for a while there.

Windows Phone 7 seems cool, and there are rumours about Apple using Azure and AWS for iCloud, and now stuff like this. New hobbyist and start-up interest is exactly what M$ needs, so I'm glad they're doing things like this. Hopefully they have the infrastructure and support to match.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Download Windows 10 for Free, Even in 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.extremetech.com/computing/260524-download-windows-10-free <comment><USER2> This article is from January. There is no download available at the link mentioned in the article. This offer expired some time ago.

</comment><comment><USER3> A fine example of an OP not reading & understanding the article they shared.</comment>


Making Terminal Applications in Rust with Termion - <AUTHOR> https://ticki.github.io/blog/making-terminal-applications-in-rust-with-termion/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is a nice application of algebraic data types and how these make an API safe, straight forward and beautiful. This is one of the things I like most in these languages such as Rust, OCaml and Haskell.</comment>


How New Zealand Made Edmund Hillary, the Man Who Conquered Everest - <AUTHOR> https://www.sbnation.com/features/2018/2/6/16978350/edmund-hillary-10-year-anniversary-mt-everest <comment><USER2> "Tenzing Norgay — the second man atop Everest and Hillary's Nepali climbing partner" \- I'm surprised the author missed this important fact, that Hillary and Tenzing made a pact to not say who reached the summit first. This is illustrative of why Hillary and Tenzing are so beloved: they truly believed in teamwork, not in self-promotion.

[https://www.scotsman.com/news/hillary-and-tenzing-s- everest-...](https://www.scotsman.com/news/hillary-and-tenzing-s-everest- summit-agreement-1-2946398)

</comment><comment><USER3> People seem to fetishise New Zealand like it's some quaint rural paradise, where everybody is really polite and friendly to each other. This article really paints the country like a bunch of country bumpkins.

It's a developed country like any other. We have the same problems as other developed countries. Auckland is a city just like any other.

That's not to say New Zealand is not amazing, because it is, but it's not perfect.

I think that the author did do a very good job at summarising up the national ethos though. It really is about having a go and doing the best with what you've got, it doesn't matter where you're from or who your parents are. Unfortunately, I think this ethos is slowly dying, as people become more sedentary, and a nouveau riche is beginning to emerge, while a generation of kiwis are doomed to a life of renting from them.

And I do firmly believe that if it all goes to shit, the rich Americans in Queenstown won't last a week, it will be the cockies (farmers) in their stations that will prevail, having spent a lifetime on the land, fighting nature, all to raise a few sheep.

</comment><comment><USER4> Somewhat naff and parochial attitude. Conquering Everest was a massive expedition, involved many mountaineers from across the British Empire, over 400 people in total [1]. The article makes no mention of this; seems to think Everest was conquered thanks to the spirit and mountains of NZ.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_British_Mount_Everest_exp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_British_Mount_Everest_expedition)

</comment><comment><USER5> "Conquered".

<comment><USER6> "We didn't feel we had conquered Everest, we felt that Everest had relented."</comment></comment>


Math problems that challenge the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.hpe.com/us/en/insights/articles/the-toughest-math-problems-that-challenge-the-world-1805.html <comment><USER2> _" Is there a number, which is larger than any finite number, between that of a countable set of numbers and the numbers of the continuum?" To think of a continuum, think of a number line—and all the numbers on it—without any gaps. This problem was answered by Kurt Gödel._

This is pretty confused statement of the continuum hypothesis; "There is no set whose cardinality is strictly between that of the integers and the real numbers."

Kurt Godel proved that the CH is consistent with standard set theory and Paul Cohen proved that the negation of the CH is consistent with standard set theory, the results together showing the CH is _independent_ of standard set theory.

I'm all for simplification as long as you don't garble ideas beyond recognition.

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

<comment><USER3> This as well:

>"Can it be proven that the axioms of logic are consistent?" Gödel also answered this problem with his "incompleteness theorem," which states that all consistent axiomatic formulations include some undecidable propositions. For more, see the short history of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries.

This is imprecise, and the last sentence is a _non sequitur_.

<comment><USER4> it's almost an antithetical non-sequitur at that, because Euclidean Geometry is consistent.

<comment><USER5> "and non Euclidean geometry". You are reading that as two statements instead of a compound statement.

Euclidean geometry is self consistent but not consistent with general relativity. The triangle inequality doesn't hold when there is a large mass near the hypotenuse.

In a less extreme example, it also doesn't hold for real world problems of the Traveling Salesman sort (one way roads and steep hills).

It's really good for flat surfaces. But we don't live on a flat surface.

<comment><USER6> > _Euclidean geometry is self consistent but not consistent with general > relativity. The triangle inequality doesn't hold when there is a large mass > near the hypotenuse._

What has one to do with the other? Am I missing some important context here, because the statement "euclidean geometry is not consistent with general relativity" doesn't make any sense to me. Euclidean geometry is mathematical abstraction built out of axioms that were chosen to sorta match our intuitive understanding of space. Relativity is a _physics_ theory that uses some different mathematical geometry built out of different axioms, chosen so that resulting geometry would better fit observational data. And Gödelian consistency has nothing to do with physics at all, it considers mathematical constructs.

<comment><USER7> I think that consistency can matter to physicsts, there are some theories that can be written as axiomatic postulates that may be shown to contradict, not contradict, or be equivalent to ZFC as far as that question is concerned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article contains some glaring mistakes e.g. the statement of the Riemann hypothesis is wrong. I suspect the author tried to edit the mathematics for the sake of comprehensibility and, due to their unfamiliarity with the area, failed.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes I think it would be hard to build a functional model of the brain

<comment><USER10> That's not even a problem of mathematics.</comment></comment>


28-year-old makes millions buying from Walmart, selling on Amazon - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/28-year-old-makes-millions-buying-from-walmart-selling-on-amazon/ar-AAupB8i <comment><USER2> He is doing $200K/mo. Assuming average sell price is $50, that would require shipping one item every 12 minutes assuming he never sleeps and works all of the 365 days. Just think about someone needs to stroll around Walmart and find all these 4000 items each month chosen meticulously, buy them, store them, package them and ship them. Then there is a classic and dreaded inventory problem. The items you bought from Walmart has no guarantee that they will get sold by same day, week or even a month. It's not hard to imagine that you will need 2X inventory and many of these items _may_ go unsold in long tail easily wiping out significant profits. In fact odds are squarely not on his side because he is specifically buying items from clearance which probably means that Walmart had good confidence and insights that those items won't get sold easily. Remember that massive sales and trend data available to Walmart is not available to this guy so he needs to be extraordinarily lucky 4000 times a month or just plain genius.

So I see lot of problems in claims being made. Unfortunately this reporting smells more like advertising and mostly link bait as opposed to investigative journalism with evidence and good data source. It is likely that on can find blindspots from inefficiencies in some nitche and make small profits but doing this at scale seems highly unlikely. I'm more on cautious side because Internet is littered with videos of people like this making claims of how anyone can millions by doing this and that. Usually that video is prelude to something they want to sell like books or self-help course or just get free publicity to boost their prospects.

<comment><USER3> > that would require shipping one item every 12 minutes assuming he never > sleeps and works all of the 365 days

He uses Fulfillment by Amazon, meaning after he buys the products he just ships them all to Amazon and Amazon will ship them to the customers when the orders go through. That saves 90% of the time required to operate a business like this. All he has to do is find and buy products where he can make a margin significant enough, send them to Amazon and list them in his store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good for him, but I really wish for a better class of business journalism. He's been doing this 4 years, and never made more than $150k/year. So he definitely isn't somebody who "makes millions".

<comment><USER5> The article might be exaggerating but it did state that he had 'millions in profits' at first paragraph.

Salary is a different matter, CEOs of new companies dont earn from annual revenue but more from stock sales and gains.

Paying 150k is also before taxing and profits and is an expense in wages.

Taking a quick guess and say that this person has 1 million in profits, but most likely 1 million to 2 million in gross profits instead of net from what I can think is more likely and 150k in his salary as well as wages for 11 people and warehouse rent which likely reaches 700k to 1 million, he likely has around 3 to 3.5 million in revenue and net profits of likely 50k as thats your average web retailer net margin

<comment><USER6> He also says he's doing $200k/month in one spot, then $8M/year in another. Smells funny.

<comment><USER7> They are currently doing $200k in sales but "Since he started selling on Amazon, Grant says the business is on track to top $8 million in total sales by the end of this year."

$8 million is sales since starting.

<comment><USER6> The math still doesn't work. He's been at it 4 years, and he notes that it wasn't huge the first year.

<comment><USER7> He's doing $200k in sales per month now.... Black Friday and Christmas are just around the corner and are probably 80% of their business (just my guess). Either way retail sales are not linear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My friend does exactly this between IKEA and Ebay.

Here in Australia, IKEA does not ship (not sure if they do else where) so she buys a heap of items at the Ikea stores and flips them online. She's been doing it for years and does pretty well at it.

Here in Australia, IKEA stores are few and far between so her arbitrage is a huge value add for a lot of her customers since IKEA cannot (won't?) ship and traveling X KM's to pickup an item isn't an option for most. Personally, I'd rather buy X item from another retailer that has a product similar to the Ikea equivalent rather than use a middle man but. People really want to buy IKEA goods rather than the alternative.

I can't see how this gentleman's equivalent will stand up in the long run but till then since Walmart's goods are less unique and more importantly, much more accessible. But still he's exploiting an OK market for now.

The self help angle he's now peddling makes me suspicious that his income hasn't scaled as well as he would like now his business has grown.

He's now got 11 employee's and a much larger footprint. His business overheads would have significantly increased and dropping from $150k to $60k a year for his salary would indicate his business Net has either diminished or hasn't grown as expected.

Hence, peddling self help to generate additional income and exposure for his business.

<comment><USER9> I used to think IKEA was insane for running such a "20th Century" business model for shipping their products. The fact that you cannot purchase anything from IKEA's website and have it delivered without incurring a $129 delivery fee is crazy when taken at face value.

However, I've come to understand why they have limited their delivery service. Their flat pack products are their profit centers and the packaging that makes them so efficient to store in their storefront warehouses is simply not suited for shipping via 3rd parties (UPS, FedEx, etc). As an extreme example, consider their cardboard honeycomb + laminate furniture (the Hemnes stuff). It takes almost nothing to punch through the flat surfaces of those products if the force is concentrated on a small area and the box offers zero protection (padding) to prevent this. Even the higher end products are packaged as tightly as possible with sensitive surfaces directly touching the box they're packed in. While it's insane to charge $129 for get a pack of their excellently priced "ancillary" products shipped (kitchen utensils, cheap LED lightbulbs), those products are priced desirably in order to get you in the store. If IKEA sold those online with a modern shipping model, they'd forgo the chance of getting you to buy something that is actually profitable. IKEA can't redesign the packaging for their flat pack products without impacting the efficiency of their in-store inventory and they can't ship their existing packages without ironclad damage-free guarantees from the big logistics companies.

Even if they get a guarantee that the logistics company eats the cost of any damaged good, it would still negatively impact customer satisfaction when, for example, the bed they ordered for their new house shows up damaged and needs to be returned/reordered. Every time I've bought IKEA furniture, it's been for an immediate need, and I'm not going to be happy when I have nowhere to sit for 2-5 days because UPS crushed my package.

<comment><USER10> That sounds about right, and I doubt that their warehouse people are fully equipped to package IKEA goods properly for shipping. When I have had orders shipped from IKEA online they have typically been poorly packaged, with pieces close to falling out of the boxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is cool. It reminds me of another three person team I'm familiar with that works on Amazon Prime arbitrage full time. They have a warehouse and an employee responsible for overseeing shipments in and shipments out. The entire business revolves around algorithmically identifying non-Prime merchandise that is undersold because it lacks the Prime label, purchasing the inventory, then reselling it under the Prime label with delivery and tracking guarantees.

They found out pretty quickly that many customers preferentially buy Prime listed items over non-Prime items, and specifically purchase items they can quickly resell for a profit.

<comment><USER12> How do they identify those products?

<comment><USER13> Most likely using Amazon Product Advertising API [http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/CHA...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/latest/DG/CHAP_ApiReference.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Parts of this are legit, but google "retail arbitrage amazon" to see a bunch of the strategies and pain points people run into. There's a reason this guy is selling seminars instead of just scaling what he does.

Long story short - for clearanced items, Amazon's new gating policy is making it more and more difficult to grey market (legit, new, but not manufacturer authorized) products. Amazon's set up a system for vendors to police their excess, and they keep internal metrics on how many items are being sold through third party vendors... and once that number/dollar is high enough, they outreach to the vendors themselves and do a sales pitch so vendors can be active on their platform.

For new items being arbitraged by a third party between like this Walmart->Amazon thing, Amazon basically sits on the sideline until the product accumulates enough sales, then outreaches to the vendor themselves. Basically the arbitrageur is doing market discovery for Amazon, and at the point where it's a particularly profitable item Amazon does their bizdev direct with the manufacturer to bring efficiency into their own marketplace. Really clever and virtuous system, to be honest.

Most arbitrageurs now go for the private label option (buy unbranded items and rebrand with their own trademark) to avoid this, but once their product is popular enough to warrant it, Amazon responds by having their buyers clone an AmazonBasics version of them item. (See prior discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533973](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533973))

</comment><comment><USER15> There are definitely quite a few people out there doing this. This guy is neither the first nor the last to be doing this type of product channel arbitrage. There is an acquaintance of mine who lives no more than 8 minutes from me who does this as a side-job and it brings him in an extra couple hundred to a couple grand a month. He obviously spends time as shown in this video going to WalMart, buying certain items, and then listing those items as being for sale through Amazon. His margin takes a slight hit sometimes when uses Amazon Fulfillment services to keep the item in Amazon's stock but he also spends time shipping items from his own basement. I imagine his fingers get a bit dry and cracked after handling so many cardboard boxes after awhile.

Additionally, he does use price tracking and discovery tools to try and find the deals with bigger amounts of arbitrage between Amazon and WalMart. Because pricing is so dynamic and changing all the time, occasionally an item just barely breaks even as Amazon will sometimes magically update prices for its own goods to match or beat what might have been available at WalMart in their store. But it all depends and varies a lot.

</comment><comment><USER16> Interestingly enough it seems that public mentions of this don't destroy business. Here is a Planet Money podcast from 2015 [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/26/539552579/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/26/539552579/episode-629-buy- low-sell-prime). I thought at this time the days for arbitrage like this would be counted. Apparently not.

<comment><USER17> The exploitation of the strategy can be limited by two factors: "labor" and "capital". It sounds like labor is the more limiting factor, though.

Also, some of these prices aren't set at maximum profit per item, but there are other factors involved. For example clearing warehouses or attracting customers.

In many cases, I suppose Walmart should be coming up with a way to sell direct to Amazon, but that may not be what they want, strategically speaking.

<comment><USER18> I wonder if Walmart simply can't afford to play arbitrage with clearance stock at the size of their organization. The amount of manpower and shipping time they would have to add to localized stock management might end up eating away at any additional profits.

From their perspective Ryan is probably helping them out by emptying their clearance stock faster. If the local manager was smart he'd keep his number on speed dial.

<comment><USER19> My experience, from shopping in Walmart quite frequently, is that they are highly disorganized and un-nimble. I guess this affords the opportunity for persistent arbitrages. For example, my local Walmart supercenter routinely runs out of certain products (not usually the same products). Sometimes it feels like GUM (An iconic USSR department store in Moscow). I gone shopping and found them missing any kind nutcracker ( a basic utensil), grapefruit juice, landscaping mulch, etc (many more examples). At the beginning of August the garden center had already moved out all its mulch for the year and filled the shelves with de-icing salt lol. The people who run the place do not seem to understand opportunity costs: they lost a sale in me and I am pretty sure nearly no-one is buying de-icing salt at the beginning of August. This is a northern USA store but where I live the weather is in the 60-70 through October: grass still grows, gardens still can be mulched. The stores are overstaffed with floor people (seemingly wandering around Lord of the Flies style) but not only 3-4 of 20 checkout lanes are open at a given time. Nearly every single canned good is dented or has a dirty lid. Their self checkout POS run on Windows 7 (lol) and update firmware automatically when they reboot which is hardly ever but for a power outage. If there are intermittent power outages in a storm a POS could reboot on the first outage and be bricked on the second one while updating firmware. There are so many opportunities for improvement with Walmart but the capital cost of a competitor entering the industry is so high. I am not sure if Amazon can be a real competitor (I think they largely serve different sets of customers).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Back few years ago I was able to make extra $10,000 on Amazon by selling $200 packs of $2 for around $240 + shipping, because everyone thinks they are super-unique. Meanwhile a mere trip to a bank is required with request for a "$200 BRICK". I takes about 10 business days for BEP to ship it to your bank and you can order multiple times, no problem. My best month was December of course with I believe $18,000 in one month because everyone want to have a pack to give out as a x-mas gift. The work took my friend that I outsources about 3 hours a day. I only checked on her on the weekend and if she has any issues (merely). I remember how upset she was at me cause she knew the business but she couldn't afford to get Bricks from Bank herself.

Eventually Amazon banned me for selling currency instruments, but it least 10 months.

<comment><USER6> That you Woz?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am surprised that there is so much margin. Is this because:

1\. Amazon product delivery is so convenient that users don't mind paying little extra or

2\. Walmart discounts products valuing their warehouse space more. Thus not realizing there was demand for the product elsewhere or at a different time.

Seems like it would be simple for Walmart to figure out this arbitrage and shelve products for longer time. Any thoughts ?

<comment><USER22> Exactly both - this is a temporary sort of arbitrage but is great for both these entrepreneurs and the end consumer in the short term. I will be surprised if they survive in the long term, since most of their business model is designed around the lack of Walmart and Amazon talking to each other. I think it would take a relatively simple collaboration between the two (though that might never happen) to completely destroy this business.

<comment><USER23> Or Walmart could just dump the stuff back into their own fulfillment system.

I doubt it amounts to enough merchandise for them to care about though, regardless of the margin. They make money on low costs and volume.

<comment><USER22> Indeed, which is why it has probably skated under the radar for this long. I imagine this company's success will eventually be its downfall in that the second when Walmart and Amazon see how much money is being made over this kind of arbitrage and that kind of money becomes significant they will quash it like a fly on the wall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Many brands are "gating" their products on Amazon so only select resellers can sell them on Amazon. For example, the article mentions LEGO--restricted. You need to show Amazon proof that you purchased your products from a credible distributor in order to list your LEGO products. Receipts from Walmart are not enough.

<comment><USER25> Lego is gated? Since when? I sell Lego on Amazon. It's been a few months since I sold any though.

<comment><USER24> Huh. That's curious. Maybe you got grandfathered in. It's definitely restricted for new sellers. Anything Disney, which it turns out is a lot of stuff these days, is all restricted too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Title should read: 28 year old used to make millions buying from Walmart, selling on Amazon; because he certainly will have to live with competition and reduced margins from now on.

<comment><USER27> Not really. The company I work for has a similar setup; we bid on wholesale lots from the same places that Big Lots and other wholesale-to-retail outfits buy from. We flip those items both in our storefront and on eBay and Amazon. We don't do FBA but that's because we have a huge warehouse and competent shipping staff at our disposal. We clear enough for 10 competitive salaries and a comfortable income for the owners, and the rest is reinvested into the company.

The company has been around for nearly 20 years (I've been with them off and on for seven of those years), and was one of the earliest online closeouts retailers back in the 90s. This is nothing new.

<comment><USER28> Lol, good luck is all I have to say to you. Invest well=)

If you honestly think this is sustainable, you are mistaken.

You are lucky to have done well all these years, but as more people get smarter, bye bye margins.( Same thing in every business.)

More and more people will get into this space.

Sure, you may be able to survive because you geta volume discount on shipping, but that's all dependent on you sourcing the product that these new people will be doing because all it takes is a smartphone and dream....

<comment><USER27> People buying random clearance items from Walmart to sell on Amazon has zero impact on our business. We buy wholesale lots for thousands of dollars at a time, stock them in a huge warehouse, and employ a team of workers to sort, evaluate, list, and ship the items. A single person working from their basement can't even touch that.

It's been sustainable for the nearly 20 years the owners have been doing it, and the rise of Amazon and eBay has caused an explosion of growth over the majority of that time.

As for myself, my role there is multifaceted (mainly IT and website management, and helping out everywhere else as needed). I'm paid better than I was in government work, and I'm enjoying it a lot more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I recently bought something from eBay (didn't search on amazon for some odd reason), and I received it from Amazon. Turns out the seller has an Amazon prime account, and all he does is provide the ebay-buyer's address on checkout.

He netted $2 on a $12 product, and I found it amusing.

<comment><USER30> That's a common thing, but amazon soon cancels the prime account for TOS violations. (Google "amazon to eBay arbitrage")

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I do a similar thing on Ebay:

Canada Post has been taking 5 or 6 weeks to deliver items from China that are shipped with free shipping.

So, I'll buy 10x what I need from China when I need a part, then sell the rest on Ebay. Paying attention to things that I can ship cheaply (i.e. < 2cm thick)

Lots of buyer will pay extra to get their spare part in 3-5 days instead of 3-5 weeks.

Christmas time will be especially good to me :)

<comment><USER32> Do you not worry about unfit-for-sale goods? Getting a replacement means waiting those 5-6 weeks and often incurs return expense. Unless your margin is high enough that you can afford to buy extras for that purpose?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Nice to know that 28 is still considered a noteworthy age for things like this. It must be getting pretty close to the cutoff though. You don't often hear titles like "32 year old creates successful business"

<comment><USER6> Maybe the older ones keep their ideas to themselves?

<comment><USER33> Haha yes, that could also be true. It doesn't seem like a great idea to share your formula and encourage lots of other people to start doing it.

<comment><USER25> There's practically unlimited money to be made in the "I'll teach you to be rich" industry. It's much less work and much more lucrative than retail arbitrage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is it possible this is just a bit of PR spin by Wallmart to position themselves as being cheaper than Amazon or have I been working in marketing for too long?

<comment><USER35> More likely a PR piece by Amazon- hey, go do sale arbitrage for us and we can both make money.

Remember, FBA charges you money to use it beyond the cut Amazon seller already pay to sell in the platform.

(Neat thing: a friend of mine was one of the devs on the Amazon FBA seller app that lets you scan barcodes at other stores and see how much you'll make selling it on Amazon)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm wondering if he's working with Gary V? The other day a friend shared one of his "hustle" videos on Social Media where Gary is hawking this and I'm wondering if it was actually "embedded marketing" for this guy.

</comment><comment><USER37> Very hard to believe, you'd have to be very naive to reveal your arbitrage like this.

<comment><USER38> It seems he is already moving on by entering the self help/motivational speaker industry.

> As his business is increasingly run by his team, Grant has reduced his > salary down to $60,000 a year and now dedicates much of his time to getting > that message out. He consults and teaches e-commerce classes through the > same blog he has been using to track his performance.

<comment><USER39> In other words, his business isn't working out very well and he has a lot of inventory risk. So he's "pivoting" to self-help.

<comment><USER40> It may have been working fine, and he simply chose to pivot careers rather than scale what he had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is just a feel good story, I don't know why people analyzing it to death. He's basically no different than ab ebay power seller. But instead of buying wholesale, he buys clearance items.

</comment><comment><USER42> I did the numbers on some items, ikea on Amazon has a 50-75% margin increase on home/kitchen items.

</comment><comment><USER43> Problem is, I don't want to work with repacking stuff, or managing others repacking stuff.

I want to build amazing software, and for that I need a larger company who can market my inventions and talk about it on conferences and road shows.

I will earn less, but I will be happy.

<comment><USER44> I don't think this story is about you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Very curious on his profit margins here.

Considering an even 10% markup, you could easily do $5M+ and only clear 500k profit. Curious what the numbers that matter are like.

</comment><comment><USER46> There's a pure software arbitrage play as well, take for example, simple green which you can't buy from amazon direct but you can from a 3rd party reseller which ends up being a direct arbitrage from walmart.com.

</comment><comment><USER47> He shouldn't share this arbitrage strategy because if others do it, its profitability will decrease -- like all arbitrage strategies.

<comment><USER48> He shouldn't share it so long as it's more profitable than what he can get paid to share it by running seminars, selling e-books, minus expenses such as getting this article "published". There's not much in the article to suggest that is the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> "What's your religion? Arbitrage."

</comment><comment><USER50> It's an interesting story, but isn't it far more efficient to find a single product that has good selling potential and just put your effort into sourcing that product? Instead of spending $1000 on 10 different categories of product, spend $10,000 on one product, thereby leveraging economies of scale.

<comment><USER51> Maybe, but this is pretty basic portfolio theory here. Diversification means you have less effect on the price of any one good (consider that you need buyers for your goods) as well as less risk of an abrupt Amazon price cut wiping you out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Why don't Wal-Mart and other retailers get into this game themselves? They know their own stock, they could constantly compare their in-store prices to what they could make selling on Amazon. After they develop the processes it would just be part of their usual inventory management.

<comment><USER53> Walmart is not going to help their direct competitor. Ever since AMZ bought whole foods they know the game is very real and that whole foods could eventually scale up to something similar to what walmart has. They can just call it "whole foods warehouse" or something like that. Amazon will be able to compete because amazon is using technology for customer benefit while walmart is just using logistics, strong arming suppliers and employees. Those were advantages in the past but no more. Amazon is also doing logistics innovation and they're doing it better than walmart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Gary Vaynerchuk has demonstrated doing the same thing. But his sources are garage sales and dollar stores. He carries apps for EBay and Amazon on his phone so he can easily see whether the margin is worth his effort. He aims his advice at kids who can easily pick up $1-2K a month.

</comment><comment><USER55> Does it add any value? Seems like pure middleman profiteering without positive output.

<comment><USER56> And?

A gas station convenience store clerk gets a salary in part from selling sugar water that promotes tooth decay and cancer.

What's the difference?

Everyone has to make a living, and our economy is not structured to prefer "positive" output, it only cares about profit. If you call this guy into question, you should be looking at the larger picture.

<comment><USER55> Sure, I agree with you, it's not an unusual thing. Still, the question remains.

<comment><USER57> Well it's more convenient for someone to buy, that adds value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> thats a lie. almost all brands sell also on amazon and will come after your listings if you list their products on amazon. the fact that those are original products and you arent infringing any trademarks or other ip dont mean shit, 'retail arbitrage' is not allowed on amazon. your walmart receipts wont prove anything either. you must be authorized reseller who buys the stuff from wholesale suppliers of the product.

</comment><comment><USER59> Is this evidence that on average you can expect to pay more on Amazon? I thought part of the appeal of Amazon was that it was generally the opposite?

</comment><comment><USER60> They try to maximize the profits they make on all of their existing and potential customers, now and in the future

</comment><comment><USER61> Good to know retail arbitrage is still a thing. I guess the algorithms haven't taken over yet!

<comment><USER62> until the labor to manipulate all these goods drops to near zero- it will continue to exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Walmart must be trying to dump inventory for the cost of an article. =P

</comment><comment><USER64> this is like scourging the prices on runescape and alching them lool

</comment><comment><USER65> Meat space HFT.

</comment><comment><USER66> Classic arbitrage opportunity trade

</comment><comment><USER19> I am not sure what the point of these news stories is. Arbitrage opportunities have existed throughout history. How is it newsworthy? However, a basic understanding of economics would indicate that such market inefficiencies tend to disappear once widely publicized. I guess the journalist wants to grab a piece of the ephemeral surplus by publishing. In the same vein I don't understand why people share truly original ideas on show HN or waste their time contributing to open source. I guess everyone is wired differently. If I had been practising the sort of arbitrage the guy in the article was doing I would have been highly motivated to keep it secret, to minimize the number of new entrants (competitors), etc.

<comment><USER67> _> waste their time contributing to open source_

"Waste time." I shouldn't reply to this kind of antisociality, but this is _gross_ enough that I feel compelled to. I contribute to open source because it is the right thing to do, because I have gotten so much from it that it is only right to pay it forward. You should be doing the same, not sneering at people with a sense of community to them.

<comment><USER68> You're very right, the internet and technology would be very different if open source didn't exist.

Basically saying, if you aren't only helping yourself and turning a profit you're doing it wrong is a little disturbing to hear.

<comment><USER19> The internet and modern computers are the result of Government and University funding (e.g. DARPA, UC Berkeley BSD) and corporate R & D projects like Xerox Alto / Start at PARC and Bell Labs Unix, C, etc.

Free Open source volunteers merely imitated (Linux vs. Unix) or extended institutional or corporate sponsored projects or ideas. Without robust government and corporate funding of basic research in the later 20th century we would not have the well developed information technology industry we have today. People founding vanity projects, ICOs, and forking is not moving the industry forward. What truly revolutionary innovations have originated from open source software vs. just imitation or variation?

Blockchain is revolutionary but the developers did monetize their work in that case (literally). In this society you need to earn money to live. It is mysterious that so many people in software want to practice their trade for free. I guess they love what they do but I think the quality of their work would increase if it was monetized. Monetization need not imply centralization or appropriation c.f. bitcoin.

It just means assigning value and ownership to the results of socially valuable work. What is so evil about that? I think, from an evolutionary psych view why people think contributing to OSS is prosocial is because of something like a genetic tendency to share new technology with the tribe. In the ancestral environment it would have been uncool for one shaman to have monopolized a new flint knapping technique. But with the rise of trade and property right people can develop and protect their competitive advantage / economic niche and monetize their work for benefit of the whole of society why collecting a reward from their innovations. Free Open Source fanatics like the GNU people are stuck in the stone age and do the profession of software development a disservice.

<comment><USER69> _It just means assigning value and ownership to the results of socially valuable work. What is so evil about that?_

Nothing at all. That's how Canonical built a billion dollar corporation building on and releasing, for free, open source code. That's why Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc all release huge amounts of their code openly and for free. There's no reason to believe you can't make amazing open code and generate huge profits too.

 _Free Open Source fanatics like the GNU people are stuck in the stone age and do the profession of software development a disservice._

GNU gave us the GPL and LGPL, which, combined with the rise of the internet for distribution, was fundamental in changing the way applications are built using other people's code. Those "fanatics" made _every_ developer's lives immeasurably better. Even if you don't like the code they produce themselves you still have a lot to be grateful for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Just think about someone needs to stroll around Walmart and find all these 4000 items each month chosen meticulously, buy them, store them, package them and ship them. Then there is a classic and dreaded inventory problem. The items you bought from Walmart has no guarantee that they will get sold by same day, week or even a month. It's not hard to imagine that you will need 2X inventory and many of these items may go unsold in long tail easily wiping out significant profits.

</comment><comment><USER71> wow!

</comment><comment><USER72> The Black-Scholes algorithm in effect.</comment>


Christopher Alexander: A Primer [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLsTZXT0FlM <comment><USER2> In case you also read the comments first and wonder who this is:

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

> Christopher Wolfgang Alexander is a widely influential British-American > architect and design theorist, and currently emeritus professor at the > University of California, Berkeley.

<comment><USER3> More relevant to the HN crowd, he invented the general concept of a "pattern language" and described a set of patterns for architecture.

The Gang of Four took that concept, hunted down a set of patterns they found in software architecture, and wrote "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software" based on it, one of the most famous books in programming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you have any interest in human-centered architecture or design in general, Pattern Language and The Nature of Order are worth reading. They're not quick reads that you can easily summarize though.

<comment><USER5> I'm neither an architect nor a software engineer, but every six months or so I flip through A Pattern Language just to help imagine buildings I've never been in. It's a beautiful book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read Notes on the Synthesis of Form and I loved it. Then I read A Pattern Language... damn son.

I recently bought The Battle for the Life and Beauty of the Earth. Within the first 2 pages I was already hooked. But in fairness, It's because I think we are two minds alike so I hardly disagree with him... which I think it's bad.

</comment><comment><USER7> Related: There was a recent discussion on HN [1] of an article in which someone described their process for designing a new home, and the author recommended "The Timeless Way of Building" by Christopher Alexander as one of their inspirations. I've since started reading the book and found it very inspiring so far. I haven't read "A Pattern Language" yet, but my impression is that "The Timeless Way" is focusing a bit more on the "why" rather than the "how".

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23881363](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23881363)

<comment><USER8> I don't remember where I read it (sorry), but I recall that "The Timeless Way of Building" and "A Pattern Language" were supposed to be, or were conceived as, one book. But it would've been way too long, so it was split up. Generally, I think you're right: "TTWoB" is sort of the set up to "APL", motivating why "APL" is useful, and telling you how to use it. I remember I used to be more drawn to "APL" because you can just open it up anywhere, and since the patterns are so short, you just read a little bit and get inspired. It's bite-sized fun! But when I finally read "The Timeless Way of Building", things really clicked. "APL" is really illuminated by digesting "TTWoB" first. (I also think "APL" is more useful read cover to cover, though nothing wrong with taking some bite-sized inspiration once in a while :) )

So, I guess, besides just agreeing with you, sort of also saying, keep reading "TTWoB", soak it up, _then_ you'll be primed for "APL". It's such a fun journey! (If you can't tell, I'm a big admirer of Christopher Alexander :) )

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I found Christopher Alexander's The Timeless Way of Building through a recommended list on HN, and it ended up changing how I think about software architecture and life in general. I can't recommend it enough.

</comment><comment><USER10> Tangentially related: there's a HN thread now on "Townscape" [0], a game with no goals, no levels, no enemy, etc - you can simply build cities and villages by clicking around.

[0] [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1291340/Townscaper/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1291340/Townscaper/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Alexander's The Timeless Way of Building is probably one of the top 3 things I have ever read on any topic, maybe my favorite thing I've ever read.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is the damn HN:Next timeout so short?? - <AUTHOR>

When I click on "next" it is invariably after I have been distracted away from HN by work, and I get the dreaded "Unknown or expired link"
I HATE THIS
Can we please get whatever magic number times this out increased beyond single digits!
Thanks <comment><USER2> I'd prefer it just redirect to the top of news.ycombinator.com/. The ranking of stories change over time, so at some point "more" has no meaning when the underlying list has changed. Since everyone who sees the expired link page, goes back to the top, the site should redirect there for me automatically.

I guess another option is to have the URL be like: <http://news.ycombinator.com/items?start=31> then clicking "more" sends you to whatever the current items 61-90 are.

<comment><AUTHOR> exactly, that is how reddit does it... I wonder if YC has heard of them ;P

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand why the link expires in the first place. Does not seem like evidence of good design.

</comment><comment><USER4> Agreed, this timeout degrades user experience greatly.</comment>


New York's Congestion-Pricing System Will Serve as Road Test for Other Cities - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-congestion-pricing-system-will-serve-as-road-test-for-other-cities-11554122682 <comment><USER2> Paywall'd, even via 'web'.</comment>


How to automatically and professionally remove photo backgrounds - <AUTHOR> http://cloudinary.com/blog/how_to_automatically_and_professionally_remove_photo_backgrounds

<comment><AUTHOR> Professionally remove the background from your image with Cloudinary's Remove- The-Background editing add-on. Image editing is done by a team of professionals to ensure accurate background removal. The image editing process is automatically initiated while uploading images to the cloud using an API. Sample code included for Ruby, PHP, Node.js, .Net and more.</comment>


Ask HN: What should be considered when starting a web development project? - <AUTHOR> I am experienced in software development, mostly on embedded and desktop platforms. I have a client who has requested me to develop for them a web application. This will be my first web application that will be deployed. I have in the past developed web apps but it was for learning purpose and were not deployed in the wild. So I would like to know, when starting a web app/development project what minimum(or maximum) things should be taken into consideration from the point of view of security, scalability and maintainability so that there is minimum disruption as the project grows? <comment><USER2> Regarding front-end maintainability and scalability, I suggest you to use a front-end component library (e.g. Bootstrap).</comment>


If Authors Were Programmers - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/G0Uln <comment><AUTHOR> Still looking for a good Kurt Vonnegut

<comment><USER2> "The program segfaulted. So it goes."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" \- charles dickens, code profiler</comment>


If you were to dump your MacBook Pro, would you switch to Windows or Linux? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I would be inclined to switch to linux Elementary OS should my program usage allow it. I have become disenchanted with Windows as of late(past Windows 7).

</comment><comment><USER3> I changed (from Linux) to a Mac because I wanted to have easy, reliable handling of Microsoft Office documents on my laptop.

These days I run a bunch of Linux and Windows VMs on top of MacOS anyway. I'll probably check out WINE/CrossOver again, and look for a hypervisor that supports an integrated desktop on Linux ...

Or Apple will just release a 64GB-capable MacBookPro before my current Mid-2014 model is obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've just gone to Linux from mac. Went to Mac before xp sp2 so I had been on it a long time.

The more clicks, touches and swipes they insist I use just to navigate, the more I appreciate vim and tmux.

<comment><AUTHOR> Which Linux did you choose? Which laptop?

<comment><USER4> Dell XPS.

Debian 8.6

Mate desktop. mate-desktop.com</comment></comment></comment>