Lambda School fined $75k by CA for operating without state approval [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.bppe.ca.gov/enforcement/actions/lambdainc_ord.pdf <comment><USER2> It's true. Our counsel informed us that we didn't need to register. Counsel was wrong. Now we have new counsel :)

We've submitted all the paperwork and have worked closely with California. This all happened a long time ago.

I'm not sure what the right level of regulation is (it's hard taking care of 50 states at once - one state registration was 2,277 pages and weighed 25 pounds [https://twitter.com/austen/status/1153450365712388096?s=21](https://twitter.com/austen/status/1153450365712388096?s=21)), but it's reasonable that it would be regulated somehow.

<comment><USER3> 25 lbs of paperwork to register an online school? Sounds less about protecting students and more towards protecting incumbents and cronies.

<comment><USER4> When the government makes you waste a a day filling out paperwork to prove that your dog food doesn't contain human remains, don't blame the regulators. Blame the guy before you who made a buck by vertically integrating his cannery and his morgue.

<comment><USER5> I used to work in compliance and the number of regulations that are punitive punishments for bad things that actually happened is just astounding.

SOX compliance is arduous but it only exists (and is as strict as it is) because some banks decided to destroy the global economy just to make a bit of money and couldn't understand why this was a bad thing.

<comment><USER6> Sox was passed in response to Enron. While that may have been a big failure, it had no effect on the wider economy. In fact Enrons scandal only came out after the 2001 recession ended... the economy grew during and after Enron's failure.

<comment><USER7> What are you talking about. It was a massive drag on the California economy while they existed. They were literally shutting the power system for millions of people down to jack the price.

<comment><USER8> That was more a failure of the artificially constructed electricity market. It didn't allow longterm contracts.

Weirdly enough, cities that had their own power companies could have such contracts and didn't get rolling blackouts. I worked in Santa Clara at the time and lived in Sunnyvale. We never lost power at work but frequently found all the clocks flashing when I got home.

Which sort of suggests that centralization is the problem, not public versus private. We had a private company failing and public power companies unperturbed.

<comment><USER7> Yet some how the same regulated market didn't experience the same problems after their bankruptcy? Come on, you're really stretching here when there is an obvious answer.

You seem to be looking to blame centralization to fit a preconceived normative view of economics rather than just acknowledging maybe markets were not effective or efficient in this particular instance and in fact suffered a massive distortion specifically because a decentralized profit motive allowed one party to abuse market making mechanisms and hijack the price setting function so crucial to efficiency.

<comment><USER8> I think if you and I lived on the same street and everybody on our street decided to generate and distribute our own power, we would never create such dysfunctional rules.

And if we did, we would probably change it the day after it failed.

Centralization enables a lot of good thing but also some bad things. Lobbying thrives on centralization because it is easier for decision makers to scam people they don't know, more likely to happen with centralization.

<comment><USER7> Have you ever lived in a neighborhood with a home owners association? Any institution that is made up of more that a few people will come up with rules that seem stupid. Even in a small scale like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Doesn't shock me one bit. I worked for General Assembly ~5 years ago, and they were really serious about getting and staying on top of all the state guidelines. I got the sense that we were the only school taking that seriously at the time. The only thing that shocks me is that we haven't seen such earlier.

I don't have a strong opinion about if such things should be regulated or not, but I do know that there's a lot of people who have just slapped together programs to ride a money wave, and offer relatively little in exchange and it's hard to vet the places by yourself.

<comment><USER10> I'm not quite sure where I stand on the regulation vs. lack thereof when it comes to these types of operations either, but between working in a hiring capacity, serving as a mock-interviewer, being courted as a potential instructor, and being friends with both instructors and unsuccessful graduates (across ~5 years) from my local, now defunct code camp - there are a lot of folks who go into these programs, often going into non-trivial debt, and coming out with nothing to show for it.

I will never forget watching a grown man cry in a mock interview because he could not solve FizzBuzz. I made sure they understood the relevant operators, the problem, inputs and expected output, gave ample time, kept things very casual and relaxed, and told them to ask any questions they needed. This was practice, after all.

I suppose I would cry too, if I wasted months and ~20,000, likely banking on a great new life as a programmer.

At the same time I've worked with great entry-level developers who used the code camps to jump from "bad" positions, e.g. young dead-ended professionals, folks with complimentary degrees but no job prospects in that industry, etc. The common thread with these folks is either prior background programming, a personal support network of programmers, or both.

What kind of regulation would help for this? Mandated entrance exams with a hard-cutoff?

<comment><USER11> If you've spent months and $20k, now "wasted", in a school environment then I have serious questions about the school's feedback and gating systems. Why wasn't this individual given unambiguous signals about their progress (i.e. insufficient)? Even hard stops because they "failed a required class" or similar?

<comment><USER9> Oh wow, I could talk for hours about this. From what I've heard at a lot of schools, the teachers would like to "fail" people or have higher standards for entry - but management and sales (I mean, admissions) push back hard. A student leaving is money lost. A student just not doing well afterward is something that they can write off as some glitch. They'd rather have the latter. Or they want the instructors to do superhero efforts to get the student to pass.

The teachers know within a week or two who is going to have real problems with the material. The schools do not want them to put assessments in place that would have them leave, because they want money.

<comment><USER2> That's the nice thing about the aligned incentives of Lambda School.

<comment><USER9> I'd like to know more about that. It sounds like a great idea!

<comment><USER2> Students pay $0 unless they get hired in a software role making $50k/yr or more.

So it's not in our best interest to string someone along who can't write fizzbuzz.

We use mastery-based progression so realistically that person wouldn't progress past the first week or two, then would repeat until he or she had mastered the content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This isn't the first time that the CA regulator (BPPE) has surprised code schools with cease-and-desist letters :)

That said, we (App Academy) found that the BPPE was a mostly accommodating regulator that worked with us to come into compliance. We did face a couple challenges that will likely still exist today:

1) BPPE won't give approval to operate until the whole application process is completed. This means that Lambda School is likely operating without approval and will continue to do so for 6-12 months at a minimum. Contracts are unenforceable during this period, the school could be forced to shut down CA operations overnight, etc.

2) BPPE doesn't have a formal policy for Income Share Agreements (ISAs). We were able to get our ISA approved in 2015, but it took some doing and was not nearly as straightforward as getting a normal tuition contract approved. Several other ISA programs that applied a year or two after us were not approved.

More info: [https://venturebeat.com/2014/01/30/california-bootcamp- will-...](https://venturebeat.com/2014/01/30/california-bootcamp-will-work- with-regulator-whatever-the-cost-its-worth-it-to-satisfy-the-state-interview/)

<comment><USER2> I can't say much publicly, except to say that nearly everything you just said is wrong.

<comment><USER12> Totally possible that things have changed in the intervening ~5 years, but that was our experience at the time.

<comment><USER2> Seems likely. I think they have wrapped their mind around code bootcamps _a tiny bit_ now. They still haven't fully wrapped their minds around the ISA yet, but that's doable too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> After reading this thread and considering it, the regulations seem fine, but lack of consistency between states seems to be a large pain-pont.

I realize California isn't just "any" state but needing to seek unique approval from up to all 50 states just to run an online school seems like a really high (and expensive) bar.

It would be nice if more states cooperated on things like this. Then you seek approval from the collective, rather than at an individual level.

<comment><USER14> The "lack of consistency" between state regulations is a feature, not a bug. States are Laboratories of democracy.

<comment><USER15> it might be a feature, but the side effect of the messy complexity is still a bug

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> And this is why we need more regulations on the "Bootcamp" industry: [https://twitter.com/KeziyahL/status/1155154616281178114](https://twitter.com/KeziyahL/status/1155154616281178114)

<comment><USER17> This needs to be higher up. HN reserves skepticism for so many bootcamps but throw all their judgement out the window when it comes with Lambda School.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Their only penalty was $75,000? Sounds like "ask for forgiveness not permission" worked out pretty well for them here.

I assume they also have to come into compliance to avoid further fines, but given that they provide a legit educational service, that shouldn't be too hard for them.

<comment><USER2> To be clear, we were never trying to ask for forgiveness, we were told we didn't need to ask for permission :)

We're lucky to be big and VC-backed and growing fast. $75k would be near deadly to a lot of smaller schools, so I'm sure the BPPE sized the fees accordingly.

<comment><USER18> I replied before you started commenting and before I had the whole story. :) I wrongly assumed you were acting like most other startups and just figured "we'll sort it out later".

My apologies for assuming that!

<comment><USER2> No worries at all! Reasonable assumption

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looking at the text of the fine, you can't charge money to teach people things ("offer education" in their parlence) in a physical location without state approval.

Could that be any more broad? Education is often just verbal and written communication between people. Seems like a first amendment violation.

<comment><USER20> > Looking at the text of the fine, you can't charge money to teach people > things ("offer education" in their parlence) in a physical location without > state approval.

It looks like you ignored _a lot_ of the text of the order, such as the citation of exemptions, and the limiting qualifier "postsecondsry" before education.

> Could that be any more broad?

Well, no, it would be harder for it to be more broad than your mischaracterization.

> Seems like a first amendment violation.

Probably not even if it was as broad as you mischaracterize it. The first amendment does not prevent the State from general regulation of commerce, even if what is being traded is speech.

<comment><USER21> You're so called 'limiting qualifier' describes literally everyone who has graduated high school. If I got on the bad side of the government and they wanted to throw the book at me I could be fined for giving guitar lessons to my neighbor.

<comment><USER20> > You're so called 'limiting qualifier' describes literally everyone who has > graduated high school. If I got on the bad side of the government and they > wanted to throw the book at me I could be fined for giving guitar lessons to > my neighbor.

No, the applicable legal definition of "postsecondary education" is not as broad as you are painting it: I've directly quoted it, with citation to the Education Code, in another subthread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20559878](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20559878)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Lambda employees always do PR damage on HN. Had commented about a poor experience of mine and was told to reach out via email, no response ever. They're all talk.

<comment><USER2> When did this happen? I can look into it

<comment><USER22> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19375303](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19375303)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's not everyday where you see a typo on a numeric value in a legal document:

[https://i.imgur.com/CKt5ZGT.png](https://i.imgur.com/CKt5ZGT.png)

(notice the $75,0000.00 - in bold, no less)

<comment><USER24> Found this too... quite funny.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can someone tell me what a Lambda school is? From the comments here it appears its a specific class of school. From their site it just looks like a regular online learning company.

<comment><USER26> It's a scammy, for-profit, private school that charges $30k+ for online classes.

Edit: 20k up front, versus 30k if taken out of your salary over 2 years. That's around 20% interest. They mention that payments are 17% of your income, but this is calculated pre-tax and paid after taxes.

<comment><USER27> That seems exceptionally unfair. They're very up front about what they charge, how they charge it, and whether or not you even pay anything at all. I got a lot out of my overall college experience and so I probably wouldn't opt for it, but if one of my kids was only interested in software development, I would suggest they attend Lambda School with no reservations whatsoever.

<comment><USER2> People who don't like the idea of capitalism in general tend to not be huge fans of Lambda School.

But we only get paid $30k in the case where you get a software engineering job after Lambda School that pays $85k+. Everyone else pays less, and absolutely no one pays more than $30k.

Our upfront tuition for the nine-month, full-time course is $20k if paid upfront.

<comment><USER28> This is distasteful coming from the founder of this institution.

<comment><USER26> I'm pretty sure he dug through my history before making that comment and is downvoting any comments that are negative.

<comment><USER29> There are likely many people down voting based on the content of your comments here. Specifically, calling a school "scammy" and being generally negative about it, without providing much reason. For context, 30k is about 1/4 what I paid for my B.S., and mine did not come with a guarantee of employment. Is there some other reason you consider Lambda School to be a scam?

<comment><USER16> Not OP, but there is a myriad of reasons: [https://twitter.com/KeziyahL/status/1155154616281178114](https://twitter.com/KeziyahL/status/1155154616281178114)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I decided to parse what was given to them. Slightly restructured:

> A person shall not open, conduct, or do business as a private postsecondary > educational institution (a private entity with a physical presence in this > state that offers – advertise, publicize, solicit, or recruit – > postsecondary education to the public for an institutional charge) in this > state without obtaining an approval to operate under this chapter. The > institution must be approved to operate, which means approved to establish, > keep, or maintain any facility or location in this state where, or from > which, or through which, postsecondary education programs are provided.

I think the key part is the determination of their location. Their California headquarters counts as a facility through which programs are provided. The fact that the classes are fully online is unrelated. They would have to argue that their headquarters don't have anything to do with providing postsecondary education programs.

<comment><USER2> Our instructors aren't in California, though, which is why our counsel thought we were OK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Per the dates the fine was issued in April at the latest; why is this surfacing now?

<comment><USER32> The judgement from April was not posted on HN at the time, and as a (YC S17) it's relevant to HN. It also appears, from a brief search, that there are active social media conversations elsewhere than HN that have caused attention to be paid to Lambda School this week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Everyone complaining about regulation should take a read through Common Law on Wikipedia and understand how U.S. regulation ends up more additive than subtractive in many cases over the years.

The reason we have inordinate amounts of regulations to fill out paperwork for is because "reason" doesn't work the same way in law as it does in practicality. What's absurdly stupid in layman's situations is but a part of the game of legal chess in court.

We could have a law that says "Use common sense and don't be an idiot", which makes perfect sense in theory, and without very specific precedents will debated to hell in court with how common law cases work.

We end up with a lot of nonsense clauses and rules and requirements due to this, but it also is how chaos is supposed to be kept in check from erupting at the seams when people use lack of specific regulation as an incentive to find ways to screw other people over.

</comment><comment><USER34> This seems like a reasonable agreement. Pay a fine (they can afford it I think), get in compliance, everyone moves on.

</comment><comment><USER35> These things happen when you're just getting starting its normal we live and learn.

Just hoping they start a slightly more flexible cohort for people who are working and looking for the next promotion

<comment><USER2> What would we need to change about our part-time classes to make it accessible to you?

<comment><USER35> Having shorter weekday hours and longer weekend hours would make it perfect. I was in the process of registering for the March 2019 data science cohort, however I dropped it as I did not want to take someone else's spot. Could not commit to 3 hours a day (on a week day)

<comment><USER2> Interesting. So could you give me an example schedule that gets to at least 20 hours/week?

<comment><USER35> Monday to Thursday 1 hour each Friday off Saturday 8 hours Sunday 8 hours

That's one example I could think of. The day off could also move around so Monday could be off

<comment><USER2> Hmm, very interesting

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> [https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1153451563664343040](https://twitter.com/Austen/status/1153451563664343040)

<comment><USER2> This was for a different state! And it was a full-time contract lawyer and my assistant (pictured); our first legal hire joins later next month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is Lamda School any different from Thinkful who has been doing this for over a decade? I have a few friends interested in online bootcamps?

<comment><USER2> Different curriculum, different instructional design, different length, different approach to hiring partners

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Reason #91836218 not to have nexus in California.

<comment><USER38> I'm not sure that this has anything to do with where the organisation is registered, rather where services are provided. CA has particularly strict education regulations from what I understand (I'm not an expert at all, but I was homeschooled, and that's certainly more heavily regulated in CA than most states). I'd be curious where Lambda has to register, and how all of this is managed from a compliance perspective, especially as they expand into international markets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Something very similar happened to Origin Code Academy in San Diego. I believe their situation is that one of the state bodies told them they would be exempt from a certain type of tax. Once they registered and were approved, they were then asked to pay their back taxes which they of course didn't have saved up.

</comment><comment><USER40> Many states are light touch. California is a heavy touch state. Our hands are everywhere and all over you.

</comment><comment><USER41> So Lambda School is considered as an educational institution. Does this mean any foreigner enrolled in it probably need a student visa? Can non-US residents take online courses while in the US without a student visa?

<comment><USER2> It's an entirely online school, and we're not Title IV accredited, so we have no authority over visas.

However, we can only offer the $0 upfront option to permanent residents of the US and EU right now. Hopefully soon other countries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Our universities regularly award high priced degrees that lack the important quality of employability. Unsophisticated (18 yo) purchasers of these degrees go deeply into debt, lured by false promises.

So much for regulation.

</comment><comment><USER43> @austenallred - sorry about the hiccup. Sucks to get caught on the wrong side of regulations. Thanks for being so incredibly open about it. Cheering for LS.

</comment><comment><USER44> do MOOCs or any online course go through similar regulation?

<comment><USER2> In theory if they charge for the course they do.

<comment><USER12> If the course is less than $2k or $3k (can't remember the exact figure), the regulations don't apply. Also, it depends on who the payer is. If the purchasers are solely companies (think corporate training), this regulation doesn't apply.

<comment><USER2> Yeah it's $2k

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Why does Lamda School need to be registered in California and not somewhere else?

<comment><USER46> Reading the currently top-rated comment from the co-founder of Lambda School, it looks like they must register in all states: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20555707](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20555707)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Learned something today. I thought lambdas operate without state.

<comment><USER48> Thank you for the reminder of why I spend so much time browsing HN comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Nuts that the state has the right to block this kind of thing. What foolishness is that?

<comment><USER50> Basically that's Quality Assurance. While Lambda School might be doing good by having the right incentives for all involved parties, a lot of money could be made by tricking people to enroll into questionable schools. So it's for the public good to regulate that market.

The question is rather why Lamda School didn't get themselves approved?

<comment><USER51> Answered elsewhere in thread: Their legal counsel said they didn't need to. The lawyer was wrong, and they now have new legal counsel. Seems like a legit oops which they're since fixed.

<comment><USER50> Thanks! I must have missed that by a few seconds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Folks get jealous of success.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why does anyone need permission from The State to teach? Seems like a violation of the first amendment.

<comment><USER53> Wait until you hear that you can't lie about being a doctor.

It's beneficial for society to make sure entities representing that they are something, actually are that something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Feel sorry for all the suckers who pay these Lambda folks tens of thousands of dollars to learn something that can easily be self taught through the plethora of blogs, videos, e-books, etc. available online.

</comment><comment><USER54> What is the purpose of having a law requiring approval for post-secondary education?

Isn't this a trade school? Why in the world does a trade school need this kind of regulation. It just seems like most of our laws are passed in secret you don't know you violated anything until you get hit.

<comment><USER55> _> What is the purpose of having a law requiring approval for post-secondary education?_

There are many.

Perhaps the most compelling is a long history of scams. California's regulations might be arduous, but they didn't come out of nowhere.

Another reason is that the customers almost by definition doesn't know how to asses quality.

 _> It just seems like most of our laws are passed in secret._

This law wasn't passed in secret.</comment></comment>


Pathological Lying: Theoretical and Empirical Support for a Diagnostic Entity - <AUTHOR> https://psychnewsdaily.com/about-13-percent-of-people-are-pathological-liars/ <comment><USER2> I had a friend in college who did this, lying frequently about even inconsequential things. I asked him about it, and he said that he rarely lied to get an obvious direct advantage over someone like we imagine. Rather, he mostly just enjoyed knowing that other people were operating under false info, very much like dramatic irony except in real life.

It was weird, and I don't think it served him well in the long run. However, his girlfriends were consistently more beautiful than you'd expect for his looks/personality/wealth.

<comment><USER3> I had one who would tell outrageous lies, growing from simple comments. It was ludicrous. "This window is a long way up" I'd say.

"Some animals can make that jump" he'd come out with. "Kangaroos can do it."

"No, I don't think they could. It's too far up?"

"Sure they can. I saw one do it! You calling me a liar?"

It was exhausting, the nonsense he'd spout. The first time I'd encountered such an obvious prevaricator. I wondered how he functioned.

<comment><USER4> Are you calling him a liar?

<comment><USER5> I think that's the kind of question that always deserves a 'yes'. Nobody honest would ask that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As an Aspie, (almost) every neurotypical person seems to be a pathological liar, not able to make a small talk without committing a few lies.

Examples: "I am fine, thanks", "You look great!", "It is a wonderful idea!", "You are our best client", "For our company privacy is a priority", etc, etc.

<comment><USER7> That's just business talk, not lies.

<comment><USER8> Yea, "I'm fine" when you're really not, isn't a lie because there's no intent to deceive. No one actually expects you to tell you how you truly are when they ask "How are you?". So if anything, the initial question is more the lie because it implies concern for the person being asked when it's really just a salutation.

<comment><USER9> If you're charismatic enough you can get away with saying how you really feel and you'll find that you make friends more quickly. I remember there was this time in the midst of a relationship ending and my father dying and after years of dealing with a painful medical condition I responded with "it's just another shitty day" with a rueful smile. Instant friends with the cafe worker. When things finally started to turn around for me and I said "things are great!" he was really happy for me.

It's a matter of reading the person and situation. Sometimes if the person asking the question is in a context where I can tell they don't want an honest answer I just say "oh, how are you?" I'd rather evade the question than to say "I'm fine" when things are shitty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Dear parents: never let your kids lie, at any age. It might be cute when they're 3 or 4 or 5, but if you don't gently tell them that "we don't tell lies, we always tell the truth" it will become a habit they will carry into adulthood.

<comment><USER11> The bigger problem is the parents. Let's start with Santa Claus. Blatant lie. Parents teach kids that lying is ok from a very young age.

Abolish Christmas, and then get back to me.

<comment><USER12> Christmas is a primary method of indoctrinating people into scientific rationalism. The childhood imagination is fully engaged by this effort, unlike any other, to create the illusion of Santa Claus. As a kid it is a sort of bliss. Then as a sign of the transition to adulthood the growing child comes to realize there is no Santa. No time for mourning though, the growing youth is immediately brought into the fold and encouraged to help maintain the illusion for the younger children. The work is complete, the nature of fantasy and reality is established.

<comment><USER13> I find it fascinating how kids, without being told, eventually realize that Santa Clause isn't real. Is it because they never get to see him? "Mall Santas" are a common thing all over the world, so I don't think it can be that.

<comment><USER14> I think they do get told, just not in as direct of a manner.

Different things get dispelled that changes their foundation that Santa relies on. Such as magic isn't real. Without magic, how can Santa perform his job?

As they get older, it becomes 'childish' by peers to believe in things people 2 years younger believe.

Media created for the demographic starts hinting at the possibility of parents being Santa.

They're fed enough information over the years to piece it together by themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Don't take the following too seriously, but studies might preselect for liars.

You usually need to meet certain criteria to be eligible and participants may fudge their answers to participate. I've done food testing on and off through the years and you always need to answer some questions beforehand to determine eligibility. If you gave a "wrong" answer, the survey-asker would say something like "Are you sure?", prompting you to pick the other choice that made you eligible for the study. Or even without prompting, if I'm trying to get paid to taste bubblegum and they ask how often you have bubblegum, I'm more likely to inflate my reported frequency compared to my actual frequency of gum chewing.

<comment><USER16> Wouldn't be surprised if this is down to people trying to conform, to answer what is expected of them, or to try and answer what others have.

There was a study I saw the other day, may have been Explained on Netflix, where six people were asked a simple question ("which line is the same length as this one"); five were in on it and intentionally gave the wrong answer, the sixth, the actual person under test, would follow the 'consensus' answer in 75% of cases (after three or four others answered with the wrong answer). Herd behaviour is a thing and probably hard to correct for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Obvious to many:

After working for 13+ years at wildly successful silicon valley companies and seeing who climbs the latter, it is those who are good at lying. There is a spectrum ranging from blatant lying to manipulative, selective withholding of information.

<comment><USER18> Would you characterize the ladder climbees as Machiavellian?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My first wife was a pathological liar. I'm bad at reading people and tend to think the best of people, so I remained naive (or willfully blind) to it for a long time. It came to a head when a sweet, mutual friend of ours asked an innocent question about what we were doing later in the day, and my (now ex-) wife gave a completely made up answer. It wasn't a white lie to get out of something, or a deflection to keep privacy, it was simply a pointless falsehood clearly produced on reflex.

She was good at keeping track of who she told what lie, so this was the first time I'd been the 3rd party observer to something I could definitively know she was lying about. I confronted her about it later privately, "<name> is our friend, why would you lie to her for no reason?" and she gave a dismissive non-answer.

That was the first loose thread that unraveled the whole sweater. It turned out she'd been lying to me and everyone close to her, about things big and small, for many years.

It's difficult for me to understand the psychology behind it, but I think it comes down to she feels alternately safer and superior when she knows some truth that someone else doesn't know. Her parents are estranged but stayed together, constantly low-key gas lighting each other. Maybe growing up in that environment is why she reflexively lies. Or maybe it's heritable and the lying leads to that kind of relationship. Either way, I wasn't going to live the same way and peaced out.

<comment><USER20> I had the same problem with one more level of abstraction: My wife didn't know she was lying.

My ex-wife lied about _everything_ , and like you it took me years to figure it out. Everything was always someone else's fault (it was my fault she couldn't work, my fault she didn't clean, my fault she didn't cook), she often rearranged the order of events or even fabricated events in their entirety.

Like you, I caught her mother in a bizarre "lie" that unraveled the thing. On XMas eve her mother called very hurt that we hadn't come over for out "traditional Xmas eve." She explained that we just always came over so she didn't think to call and make sure we were coming.

The fact is, I have spent every XMas eve with my own family, we have a tradition of having a party on XMas eve, and I have only missed it once due to being hospitalized. You have to understand the sheer madness of this. She imagined that we were going to come over, convinced herself that we had always done so, and that there was no reason to even let us know she expected us.

This set off alarm bells in my head, I could see that my wife was remembering things that didn't happen or altering events in her head and this was why we could never talk about anything or reach any common ground because we couldn't agree on ground truth.

Eventually I found out she had suffered some trauma, and as a result something called "confabulation" which is more or less a unreliable/false memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "I have read and consent to the terms of service and the privacy policy"

</comment><comment><USER22> I am a pathological liar. From the small scale (What did you do yesterday? Completed a videogame) to the large scale (lying about my job) to the extreme (multi-year affairs).

How does one stop?

<comment><USER23> Have you gotten professional help? You're clearly aware that you have a problem and you seem to want to fix it, which is a really important first step.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'd like to see this broken down by profession. Lying seems to be part of the job in many.

</comment><comment><USER25> I've made a conscious effort to stop lying after reading [https://samharris.org/books/lying/](https://samharris.org/books/lying/)

Can recommend, it feels great.

<comment><USER26> Seems like an interesting read, and I thought about getting it (though I'm kind of biased since I agree with Harris' premise). But the top review on Amazon mentions that the author simply "dismisses him [Kant] by saying that he [Harris] has no reason to take Kant seriously.", especially after Kant's extensive work on the topic. (And the reviewer mentions that this seems to be common to Harris work).

This is a huge vice in itself. Yes, sometimes arguments are weak, or there is a new idea, or the argument doesn't work anymore because the world changed so much, or whatever - but then just ignoring them feels pretty similar to the occasional white lie, and an entry to "my argument is superior because I gave it".

<comment><USER27> I've been a fan of Harris in the past, but I've been getting sick of him lately. He's ridiculously pretentious, arrogant, and a massive asshole about communicating his ideas. He seems to come up with the most unpleasant argument possible. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised about him completely dismissing a respected viewpoint.

I don't know why I liked him before, except I was a young atheist, and I was angry. I guess now that I'm older the whole "I am very smart" shtick is no longer appealing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Honesty just doesn't pay.

<comment><USER4> Also, "Not stealing doesn't pay". But, I think on average the long-term is opposite, and it's certainly more important, because, eventually, the long- term dictates future short-terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can imagine there are professions where the threshold for lies to count as pathological would be higher than others.

If you barely talk, if the few things you say are all lies, that's pretty serious. But for people who talk a lot, like politicians, salesmen, managers, etc, 10 lies per day doesn't sound very high at all.

<comment><USER29> I heard lying is endemic in Hollywood.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I worked with a co-worker who couldn't stop lying about even the smallest stuff. I took it as a weird personality quirk and it never felt malicious to me because the lies felt like they were created to entertain others

<comment><USER16> Sounds like they were 'stuck' in a mode of lying, or they don't consider it to be lying. And that they haven't been called out on it enough for them to think about what they say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> _The researchers recruited them in 2019 from various mental health forums, social media, and a university._

This seems like a classic reflexive problem: why would we expect liars to produce reliable data regarding their lying?

</comment><comment><USER32> What about the lies we tell ourselves?

</comment><comment><USER33> _" The study found the pathological liars were more likely to experience distress and impaired functioning, especially in social relationships."_

I am quite interested in the behavior of Trump. As far as we know he tells a lot of lies but it seems the above quote does not apply to him.

Could it be that distress and impaired functioning only apply to people who are able to experience negative consequences of their lies?

Meaning two things:

* There are negative consequences, so they experience them.

* They see the consequences as negative.

<comment><USER34> I don't get the impression Trump is lacking in 'distress and impaired functioning, especially in social relationships'. He seems rather thin- skinned, unhappy, and as far as I can tell he doesn't seem to have any real friends.

What makes you think he makes it 'work' other than being, by some measures, successful?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> That's lower than I expected.

<comment><USER24> It's higher than I expected. This is just the % that admitted to it, too!

<comment><USER36> And thats 10 lies per day, how many people tell 1 lie a day?</comment></comment></comment>


Search Wars: Twitter Versus Google - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/tjan/2009/07/search-wars-twitter-versus-goo.html <comment><USER2> Twitter vs Google is a bit like Lucille Ball vs IBM

</comment><comment> onreact-com "If Google wants to avoid becoming the next Yahoo (or AltaVista or Lycos) then it needs to think about how it can best serve its users with more relevant results."

They do that all the time.

Plus: Just because Google is dominant right now does not mean that everybody else will be into search. I wonder why people try to convince us that Twitter is about search while it is a social networking platform per definition. It can be used as social news or social bookmarking but even its rudimentary real time search feature can't replace Google.</comment>


Find His Porn: Evil Website of the Week - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/find_his_porn_evil_website_of_the_week.php <comment><USER2> Well, here goes... I'm "investing" $20 for the rest of HN to find out how accurate it is.

Okay so it's scanning... it has found a bunch of development things, gifs from my website work which isn't porn -- recycle binned stuff -- okay watching this, it's just bringing up every single file that contains a list of extensions; it's included under "videos" things like "DVDMaker sample" which certainly aren't porn. I don't think "passwordField.png" located in programData/skype is pornographic.

The websites it has found don't appear to be any I have ever visted, although some are (and they're popular sites) about half aren't. Either it's fabricating the websites or I've visited sites that embed data from these other sites? Plausible I guess.

What an awful product, albeit effectively marketed.

<comment><USER3> I'll admit it's probably finding a lot of false positives, but I could make an argument for many of the files you said it flagged.

Contains "ass": ui-bg_glass_55_fbfgee_1x400.png

Path contains "x", contains "butt", "up" could indicate up-skirt: combo- button-up.png

Contains "stroke", contains "16": stock-selection-stroke-16.png

Contains "cock", contains "x": xlr_pro_mortal_cocktail.png

Contains "hole": whole.png

So basically anything with an x, a possible age, and any number of flagged words/slang/abbreviations, etc could be causing these to be flagged.

<comment><USER4> That's plausible, but suggests that the creator never tested it on real-world data. Either way, it's really bad development work.

<comment><USER5> Methinks you misunderstand. This is a money-at-all-costs gambit, not a pinnacle-of-science-and-engineering product.

It could have been made by someone following popular HN advice: a.) target women by b.) preying on a weakness (here, a sense of insecurity) then c.) extract money.

<comment><USER6> I'm not so sure the advice is popular, so much as it get's repeated ad-nauseum by an individual with little else to offer.

<comment><USER7> _it get's repeated ad-nauseum by an individual with little else to offer._

You've been on HN for less than an year. I'm not sure you're ready to start passing judgement on how much one of the most helpful contributors has to offer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Of course installing Picasa desktop and asking it to index the whole drive's photos will do pretty much do this exact thing for free.

In my dream world this website would be setup so that when someone clicks "Buy" it would simply go to a static page that reads: _Congratulations! We've empirically determined that you need more communication in your relationship._

<comment><AUTHOR> But do they still get the $20?

<comment><USER9> $20 is pretty good for relationship counseling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This service may serve a purpose for men as an early indicator that their SO has communication issues. I cannot speak for anyone else but I for one would not want to be in a relationship where my SO was spying on me like she was my probation officer.

<comment><USER11> Not to mention is watching porn while in a relationship that big of a deal?

<comment><USER12> It depends on what kind of relationship you have. Traditionally, and what seems right to most people is a relationship with a level of commitment towards the other. I'm not saying this is always true, but that level of commitment does have benefits, usually resulting in a stronger relationship because of the trust developed.

<comment><USER13> Associating watching porn with lack of commitment sounds like something out of the 50s. Nobody(*) contemplates leaving their SO for some person on a website (or in a movie, or on TV), and porn isn't an exception.

<comment><USER14> > on a website

I'd qualify that to be "non-dating website".

But actually, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody broke off an existing relationship to pursue someone they were fantasizing about online. If they're unhappy in their current relationship, online fantasy is a form of escape and leads to eventual idealization. By comparison, the real person can't compete as their flaws are evident.

Dime-store psychology perhaps, but on these topics nothing surprises me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My current agreement is, "You can look at anything on my computer you want, _just ask me first_." Looking without asking is a game misconduct. My failing to disclose something when asked would likewise be a game misconduct.

It's just like allowing the police to search, but asking for a warrant first. Agreeing that we have to ask first puts up the hurdle of triggering a conversation.

<comment><USER16> Why not 'I trust you' and if something is an issue or a potential issue we can talk about it and try to reach an agreeable resolution?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> People really have girlfriends who won't let them watch porn in peace?

Hell, where I live, most chicks watch more porn than do the guys.

<comment><USER18> Out of curiosity, where do you live?

<comment><USER17> It's called Sweden, buddy.

:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It feels like this guys' read Patio's blog and decided to create a product which appeals to women. I would love to know the kind of money these guys are making.

<comment><USER20> Not much

Alexa ranking is 11 million, that means it get something like 100 hits a month

<comment><USER21> And I wonder how many of those who buy are actually porn-watchers who want to go the extra step to ensure their stash is invisible to their SO?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Find my porn? Why, it's right there in the folder called Porn next to Movies and Music. And not only does my SO know, we talk about what appeals to us.

To be honest about it to each other and above all to myself belongs to a healthy and open sexuality.

<comment><USER23> Mine is in a directory called "Not Porn", which accomplishes all the same things, and is also a fun joke.

<comment><USER24> Had a customer a few years ago, a non-profit in NYC. They had a link on their site which said either porn or nude women. When you clicked the link you brought up their donation page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm genuinely curious - how many people in this day and age still feel the need to hide porn? Doesn't that seem a bit infantile?

<comment><USER26> I hide mine in the folder on my desktop labeled "porn". Neither myself or my girlfriend have any problems with it, but I know plenty of my friends who would be offended if they saw it. On my laptop I keep it in a truecrypt folder with a password I share with the girlfriend (because she adds to it and uses it, not because she wants to spy); that way if I have any stuff I need to do at work with the laptop I can be comfortable knowing it's not going to pop up in a presentation. I think what's changed since I was 16 and had a deeply hidden folder is that I'm no longer embarrassed about it, I just worry that I'll accidentally offend someone else.

<comment><USER27> <http://xkcd.com/981/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> They could make a fortune selling the list of names of women who bought this software.

Then bill that service out as something like 'Girlfriend Screening'.

</comment><comment><USER29> I thought the author's pointing out of the supposed untruth that you don't have to download anything because you have to have Java to be a bit silly.

'Youtube _claims_ you don't have to download anything to watch videos.... but AHA! You have to have Flash installed! Thought you could put one over on us, ehh?!?!'

Not really... Java and Flash are extremely common browser plugins.

</comment><comment><USER30> RWW is linking to that site without a rel="nofollow".

No such thing as bad PR, eh?

<comment><USER31> OOH. Good point. I'll update the post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I've found, from personal experience as friends/neighbors/family's unofficial tech support person, that there's a surprising number of women that look at porn. Whereas guys might blush when their viewing habits are exposed, women would probably live the rest of their lives in shame.

Maybe "Find Their Porn" would open up a greater market? Most guys laugh at the prospect of their girlfriends/wives being mad about looking at porn, but they would probably fall into a spiral of insecurity if they found out their significant other was looking at other guys for sexual pleasure.

</comment><comment><USER33> Private browsing mode, available in all leading browsers.

Wouldn't that effectively hide all traces of any browsing history locally, be it nefarious or otherwise?

That kind of response begs the question, if you have to hide it, is it wrong or not? Or is it more you don't want to be showing person Z some funny video and it autocompletes... something rather embarrassing.

Regardless, these guys have hit a nerve, can't see why they won't be printing money in the coming weeks with all the exposure they'll get.

<comment><USER34> I might be talking out of my ass, but I'm not sure if all browsers clear flash cookies, even in private mode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> $20 for a one-time scan? Assuming their SEO is as honest as their business model, this site must print money.

<comment><USER31> Totally. With that name, they probably don't have much SEO work to do at all.

<comment><USER30> Fuck SEO. With a tool that does exactly and trivially what the costumer is looking for and appeals to a target niche so perfectly, and $20 a pop, I bet they can pay to be the top ad.

<comment><USER36> If this report is accurate: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3301295>

then it might be closer to say a tool that _pretends_ to do exactly and trivially what the customer is looking for, and bilks a target niche out of money without actually doing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> There was a free checker like this a while back that used CSS :active links to check which sites were visited. Looks like these guys just monetized it.

<comment><USER38> What the internet knows about you (inoperant in current Firefox and Chrome): <http://wtikay.com/xxx>

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Of course, my first reaction to this is to figure out a counter-business to beat the detector. So it goes.

<comment><USER40> So go register hidemyporn.com or something and get to work.

For bonus points: secretly build both types of services and sell to both sides in an arms race. You could even offer an extra premium tier of each that defeats the non-premium tier of the other.

<comment><USER41> This comment reminds me of my radar detector, which is vulnerable to a police radar detector detector, but which itself has a radar detector detector detector.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Woah...thats what everyone's worried about? The fact that it doesn't accurately find porn?!

I can't even get past the fact that I'm supposed to allow a website to go through the contents of my disk!

For crying out loud, it doesn't even have SSL or any other third party verfiers!

</comment><comment><USER43> Hmmmm, I think I'll launch IsSheASpy.com and sell spy-software detection software.

<comment><USER16> It'd be better to sell the software to clean up evidence in the first place. I bet you could sell it. It might not be a terrible business idea. Sigh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> so _that's_ where my porn is! AWESOME! (brb)

</comment><comment><USER45> Two things:

First: As a society, we should really examine the kind of impact internet porn is having on the lives of our young men. There is a growing body of knowledge around porn-induced ED in 20-somethings, among other myriad ways it negatively impacts the health and productivity of individuals and relationships.

Second: Who actually saves porn anymore?

(EDIT: it's not a "huge body of knowledge"... yet, it's growing)

<comment><USER46> I'd like to see some references to this supposed "growing body of knowledge", because it sounds like the kind of complete BS put out by anti-porn religious zealots.

As a society we need to move past this ridiculous idea that the enjoyment of sex, including sexual fantasization and pornography, are something to be ashamed of or feared. Sex and porn are normal parts of a healthy, adult sexuality.

<comment><USER45> > ... porn [is a normal part] of a healthy, adult sexuality

This is the kind of statement that should really be carefully evaluated. Smoking was "normal" once, too, along with many other unsavory bits of culture we have now moved on from.

See: [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned- arrow/20...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned- arrow/201107/porn-induced-sexual-dysfunction-is-growing-problem)

<comment><USER47> I followed your link and could not find any studies cited in the article that back up the claims made (not saying there aren't any, just that I couldn't find any in the article). Most of it hinges on a self reported survey conducted once in Italy.

Basically, show some solid evidence. Otherwise it would seem that you are taking a moral position on this, not a scientific one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Detecting porn eh? This reminds me of China's Green Dam initiative, which ended up banning Garfield, claiming that it's porn.

[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-06-15/green-dam-it- chinese-s...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-06-15/green-dam-it-chinese- software-blocks-garfield/1714266)

</comment><comment><USER49> I think you should reduce the price and get feedback to increase the quality of your product. $20 is quite expensive for just some invalid information. Maybe charge somewhere form $1-$5. Get more people to test it and find more ways to better your product.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm going to create "Find Her Porn Finder". It will detect when this piece of crap is installed on your machines and email you with the suggestion to break up with them immediately.

<comment><USER50> Part of the point of OP was that you don't even get a thing to install.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Well this is sure to put a stop to guys watching porn when their women aren't looking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, as long as they're on Windows, anyway...

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this comment was widely misinterpreted. The product only runs on Windows. That was the point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> But who downloads porn on their pc?</comment>


Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They're Outgrowing Subsidies - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-09-19/solar-and-wind-power-so-cheap-they-re-outgrowing-subsidies <comment><USER2> USD$5.2 trillion was spent globally on fossil fuel subsidies in 2017

[https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo...](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global- Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level- Estimates-46509)

"hey fossil fuels, let's 1v1" sincerely, solar

(From Forbes: United States Spend Ten Times More On Fossil Fuel Subsidies Than Education)

<comment><USER3> A few things:

1) That's not what was spent, it's what this paper projected was spent.

2) I think this paper is defining subsidy in a way that we don't usually use that word. They're calling the costs associated with anthropogenic climate change and pollution "subsidies", most people would just call those things "costs."

Using the word "subsidy" implies that governments are actively taking tax dollars and giving it to fossil fuel companies and consumers. That doesn't appear to be what's going on for the most part.

Look at Figure 4, the bulk of the so-called "subsidies" are "global warming" and "local pollution" those aren't what most people would call subsidies, they're costs.

I'm saying this just to clarify things, personally I am supportive of massive tax increases on carbon and massive subsidies for renewables.

<comment><USER4> It's an unconventional way to use "subsidy," but I think it fits.

Imagine a garbage company. The government pays them so they can buy land where they dump their garbage. Obviously a subsidy.

Now, let's say the government buys the land themselves then gives it to the company for dumping. No money changes hands but this is still pretty clearly a subsidy.

Instead of giving the company land, the government retains ownership, but lets the company dump there for free. Still a pretty clear subsidy.

Instead of buying the land, the government just takes it. Now no money is involved at all, but it's still a subsidy.

Instead of taking the land, the government just declares that it's legal for the garbage company to dump trash on other people's land, and the owners just have to deal with it. This is quite different in the details from the original subsidy, but the overall effect is essentially the same.

Polluters are in a situation that's exactly like this last scenario. They get to dump their trash on everyone's property and don't have to pay for the privilege. They're being subsidized in an amount equal to whatever payment it would take to get everyone to willingly accept this trash.

<comment><USER5> Stop! Stop! You're breathing my air!

That kind of thinking leads to a Logan's Run scenario. Instead, why not think of it as a part of life and work to find a solution that doesn't require the wholesale curtailment of liberties all in the name of the environment?

<comment><USER6> That sounds like the slippery slope fallacy. That kind of thinking doesn't necessarily _lead_ anywhere, and even if it did, that doesn't make it wrong. The argument itself is sound.

No one suggested "the wholesale curtailment of liberties". That's a strawman.

There are negative externalities associated with many activities, coal power generation is one of them. The external cost of coal power is at least more than twice the normal market price of the electricity[1]. This is the when you ignore external effects such as those that take place through water, soils, noise, or carbon dioxide and its effect on climate change.

So the actual price is actually at least three times higher. Why not just bill the polluter for the damage they do and then let the market decide which is better based on the true price?

[1] [https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.5.1649](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.5.1649)

<comment><USER5> But who determines the cost? Who amongst us does not produce CO2?

YOU are the customer if each of these externalities that you are arguing against. Are you willing to shoulder the cost?

<comment><USER7> That's the whole point is it not? We should each shoulder the appropriate burden of impact in the price of all the goods and services we buy.

If that means some businesses are no longer viable, they go the same way as horse buggy manufacturers. Maybe far fewer will be willing to take international holidays every year. Business will seek more sustainable ways of doing the things we enjoy.

How can a market be expected to function fairly with secret information (an externality)? It's intentionally distorted. Pollution, waste and the rest comes with negligible immediate cost, but far reaching consequences to everyone else's freedoms. If _all_ those externalities are priced in, customers can make informed decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can we stop subsidizing oil and corn too?

<comment><USER9> Why is subsidizing corn a bad thing? Honest question.

<comment><USER10> Flip it around. Why is subsidizing corn a good thing?

<comment><USER11> I imagine if food production was not subsidized, much of it would naturally move to other countries with cheaper labour forces.

The USA doesn't want to be dependent on other countries for basic goods like food; imagine if there was an "OPEC" of food in 1973 and they decided to cut off the food supply to protest US support of Israel.

<comment><USER12> Most agriculture is not particularly labor-intensive now. We have robot tractors and ploughs and industrial scale feedlots and slaughterhouses. The average farmer cultivates over 300 acres, and that number is distorted downwards by large numbers of family farmers. Pure agribusiness can cultivate many square miles with basically no people.

The exception are soft fruits like strawberries, avocados, or apricots, where harvesting them mechanically will bruise them beyond what a consumer's willing to eat. These are luxuries, not staples, though. Things like wheat, corn, and other grains get harvested by giant machines and require little labor input.

<comment><USER11> It's still cheaper to export those machines to Brazil or something and have someone poorer drive the tractors and combine harvesters around and maintain them. No winter either so the utilization would be higher.

<comment><USER12> Not when you figure in transportation costs. Food is perishable, bulky, and labor-intensive to ship. Even with modern automated railroads and containerization (which aren't necessarily present in countries with cheaper labor), you can very easily spend more in transit than you do in growing & harvesting the food.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When it comes to renewable energy it is worth to look at one (sad) statistics: if Germany and California, one of the largest CO2 emitters (Germany is on the 6th place, despite a lot of (failed [2]) efforts and even more PR) would spend those money on nuclear energy, they would be 100% clean - CO2 emission zero, null.

Why people keep investing in something so unreliable like wind/solar power plants which are useless without auxiliary source of energy (batteries technology is not ready for mass energy storage) while we have technology that provides clean, CO2 free energy?

I understand sun power plants in California, that make some sense (not much, as those stats show), but, hey, Germany? With more or less 60-70 sunny days a year?

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2018/09/11/had- they-bet-on-nuclear-not-renewables-germany-california-would-already- have-100-clean-power)

[2] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/10/10/why- arent...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/10/10/why-arent- renewables-decreasing-germanys-carbon-emissions/)

<comment><USER14> That's not really the whole picture. Nuclear power doesn't produce CO2, but does produce radioactive waste which must be stored somewhere.

<comment><USER15> The volume of nuclear waste that must be stored is vastly smaller (by orders of magnitude) than the amount of emissions (and often ashes) from fossil fuels. About the same size as the radioactive tailings from mining rare earths for wind turbines (depending on the design).

And a big difference is that nuclear waste IS stored. In engineered containers. With the price paid by the nuclear power provider. Unlike CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants.

So I'd say, given the orders of magnitude difference, it is pretty much the full story. Except to note the waste issue for nuclear is vastly exaggerated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > _So until battery systems are cheap enough for generators to stockpile > electricity for hours at a time, renewables can't constantly provide power > like coal and gas._

I thought the solution wasn't expensive batteries locally, but rather storing pumped water in reservoirs, or other solutions like melting and re-solidifying salt, etc. -- huge-scale energy storage connected to the grid. Your energy is produced once from the sun/wind, and then second (at night) from hydroelectric turbines or steam.

Anyone know how that's going? Does it have to be done at the city/region grid level, or are there micro-versions that make sense to be integrated with a single wind turbine or field of them?

<comment><USER17> "Battery systems" encompass all of the above methods of "energy storage connected to the grid". My personal favorite "so crazy it might work" idea is stacking concrete blocks on top of each other.

Li-ion batteries keep coming down in price, and they can be scaled to basically any size. Pumped hydro is generally considered the best if you have access to it. Compressed air storage works well if you've got a huge, airtight cavern (generally an old salt mine). But any cheap energy storage we can get is gonna be useful.

<comment><USER18> Another crazy one is simply pushing a big heavy train up a hill. Then when you need power just letting it go back down the hill.

[https://www.wired.com/2016/05/forget-elons-batteries-fix- gri...](https://www.wired.com/2016/05/forget-elons-batteries-fix-grid-rock- filled-train-hill/)

<comment><USER19> I one-up that with [https://heindl-energy.com/technical- concept/](https://heindl-energy.com/technical-concept/) (city for scale?;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For anyone interested in power useage and supply patterns you should check out [https://gridwatch.co.uk/](https://gridwatch.co.uk/)

It shows UK power use and generation in realtime, and over various time periods. There is still plenty of room for more renewables, and it shows how solar is actually pretty good in the uk, it generates during the main peak period in the day.

<comment><USER21> Worldwide mostly realtime data: [https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=...](https://www.electricitymap.org/?wind=false&solar=false&page=map)

<comment><USER22> I think France vs Germany in this map is a nice argument in the nuclear vs "renewables" discussion

<comment><USER20> Germany's sudden shift from nuclear without a plan for what to replace it with was just so frustrating to watch. So much coal :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Beautiful, chromium 77 has, as advertised, broken incognito mode detection. Bloomberg now claims I'm browsing incognito regardless of whether I really am (and thus cannot read the article).

<comment><USER24> outline failed so I used my freebie on ya

I'm not reading it so you can have mine, everyone aside from Mr. russdill please kindly avert your eyes.

Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They're Outgrowing Subsidies @markchediak More stories by Mark Chediak 5-7 minutes

For years, wind and solar power were derided as boondoggles. They were too expensive, the argument went, to build without government handouts.

Today, renewable energy is so cheap that the handouts they once needed are disappearing.

On sun-drenched fields across Spain and Italy, developers are building solar farms without subsidies or tax-breaks, betting they can profit without them. In China, the government plans to stop financially supporting new wind farms. And in the U.S., developers are signing shorter sales contracts, opting to depend on competitive markets for revenue once the agreements expire.

relates to Solar and Wind Power So Cheap They're Outgrowing Subsidies

The developments have profound implications for the push to phase out fossil fuels and slow the onset of climate change. Electricity generation and heating account for 25% of global greenhouse gases. As wind and solar demonstrate they can compete on their own against coal- and natural gas-fired plants, the economic and political arguments in favor of carbon-free power become harder and harder to refute.

"The training wheels are off," said Joe Osha, an equity analyst at JMP Securities. "Prices have declined enough for both solar and wind that there's a path toward continued deployment in a post-subsidy world."

Subsidy-Free Europe

The reason, in short, is the subsidies worked. After decades of quotas, tax breaks and feed-in-tariffs, wind and solar have been deployed widely enough for manufacturers and developers to become increasingly efficient and drive down costs. The cost of wind power has fallen about 50% since 2010. Solar has dropped 85%. That makes them cheaper than new coal and gas plants in two- thirds of the world, according to BloombergNEF.

"Solar got cheap," said Jenny Chase, an analyst at BNEF. "It's really that simple."

China Huaneng Group Windfarm in Eastern China

Wind turbines spin in Qidong, China.

Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Yet for all it's promise, clean energy still has a long way to go before fully usurping coal and gas. Wind and solar still only accounted for about 7% of electricity generation worldwide last year, according to BNEF. And most wind and solar projects still depend on subsides. In the U.S., in fact, the solar industry is pushing to extend federal tax credits that are scheduled to decline over the next few years.

And then there's the issue of round-the-clock power. Solar doesn't work at night. Wind farms go idle when breezes slack. So until battery systems are cheap enough for generators to stockpile electricity for hours at a time, renewables can't constantly provide power like coal and gas.

Solar module prices have plunged this decade

Perhaps nowhere is the push toward subsidy-free clean energy clearer than on arid expanses of Southern Europe. About 750 megawatts of subsidy-free clean- energy projects are expected to connect to the grid in 2019 alone, across Spain, Italy, Portugal and elsewhere -- enough to power about 333,000 households, according to Pietro Radoia, an analyst at BNEF.

"The cheapest way of producing electricity in Spain is the sun," Jose Dominguez Abascal, the nation's secretary of state for energy, said last year.

The road to subsidy-free renewables wasn't easy for Spain. A decade ago, it offered developers a lavish feed-in tariff, prompting an uncontrolled boom that strained the national treasury. Spain slashed incentives and now has a hands-off energy policy.

China, the world's largest renewable energy market, also propped up wind and solar for years. Now it's shifting toward a more market-driven approach. Earlier this year, officials announced a plan to develop 20.8 gigawatts of renewable projects that can only profit from selling electricity into grids at prices equal to or less than coal. Plus, most wind farms built on land -- as opposed to in the ocean -- won't be eligible for subsidies after 2021.

Cheaper Wind

The picture is less clear in the U.S. Nearly every American wind and solar project remains eligible for subsidies through federal tax breaks, which are scheduled to decrease or phase out altogether over the next few years. Plus, dozens of states have renewable-energy quotas, forcing utilities to buy a certain amount of wind and solar.

Still, they're starting to compete on their own. The proof is in the sales agreements. For years, clean-energy developers needed 20- or 25-year power- purchase contracts to ensure a return on investment. Now they're building wind and solar farms with agreements for 15 years or less -- with the expectation that projects will compete against gas- and coal-fired plants in wholesale markets after the deals conclude.

"Renewable energy's next major evolutionary step is to sell power directly into wholesale markets," said Richard Matsui, chief executive officer at San Francisco-based solar risk-management firm KWh Analytics. "Investors worldwide are only beginning to dip their toes in those waters."

(Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority stakeholder of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, has committed $500 million to launch Beyond Carbon, a campaign aimed at closing the remaining coal-powered plants in the U.S. by 2030 and slowing the construction of new gas plants.)

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global collaboration of more than 250 news outlets to highlight climate change.

— With assistance by James Thornhill, Reed Landberg, Jasmine Ng, Jeremy Hodges, and Chris Martin

<comment><USER23> Thx man.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why no mention of nuclear electricity generation, which requires less CO2 than Solar and even Wind? (For the same amount of available power)

<comment><USER26> Because nuclear can't keep up on cost. Right now, new wind, PV solar, and gas all cost about half as much per kwh as nuclear. We actually have numerous nuclear plants being decommissioned early in the US, because they've lost industrial-scale customers to cheaper new sources, and since their operational cost doesn't reduce with output, it can cost more to keep the plant running than to just shut it down.

A lot of pro-nuclear activists respond with "Yeah, but" and bring up theoretical thorium designs and such that are not actually in production operation anywhere. But until they are in production, they are not actual competition for the gas/wind/solar systems that _are_ commercially available, at scale, right now. But traditional light water reactors? They're a technological dead end. The cost doesn't work.

<comment><USER25> When you're saying nuclear can't keep up with the cost, are you comparing the same kwh?

For wind and solar if you install X kwh for amount A, and for nuclear Y khw for amount B, X represents a peak available capacity.. At best, what is the guaranteed available khw you get for this installed base? 0.10 * X?

For nuclear the available capacity is much closer to Y.

So if the available capacity from wind/solar was something like 0.10 X, then it means you'll have to install 10x more wind and solar than you would need nuclear. Which needs more material and more energy expenditure (more CO2?) to install.

If you compare cost, similarly, A would have to be 10x smaller than B to make wind/solar be cheaper.

Some other issues is how Solar competes in terms of surface with areas that you'd grow food in (unless you build in the desert, but then you have issues such as dust on the panels, and the need to carry the energy across large land)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What are the developments that have made solar and wind _so much_ cheaper over the last 15 years? I am hoping HN has an expert lurking about who can unpack this.

<comment><USER28> It's not one big thing as a thousand thousand little things that individual engineers have worked on.

"Simply" making the turbines bigger helps quite a lot, but that requires engineering the blades and support structures. There's also a continuous improvement of the generators, and the inverters to connect them to the grid. There's also clever fluid modelling software to reduce the extent to which one turbine takes energy out of the airstream of another, and so on.

For solar cells, the onward march of silicon processing helps a lot, but this time we don't even have to reduce the feature size! One paper that sticks in my memory is the development of "reduced kerf diamond wire saws": since a "boule" of silicon is more or less a fixed cost, if you can make the cuts between wafers thinner you reduce the amount of waste material and increase the number of wafers produced.

<comment><USER29> I recall recently reading a paper from back when the price of polysilicon was at its peak, which it discussed. Since then, adjust for inflation, its price has declined by a factor of 70.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I am really glad this is happening. I think that the Moore's Law-like decline in costs of wind and solar are going to far more to combat climate change than every international treaty ever attempted, and that's great because climate change is a serious problem and it must be addressed.

However...

I think we have been trying to figure out how to get the world's economy to shift off of fossil fuels for so long, we haven't given a lot of thought to what happens as we do, which appears to be in the process of happening. Right now it's coal that's circling the drain. The other fossil fuels will come a few years after.

Imagine every nation in the world that depends on oil revenue right now, going the way of Venezuela.

We are not ready.

</comment><comment><USER31> Why do we still have such poor quality reporting on renewables:

> And then there's the issue of round-the-clock power. Solar doesn't work at > night.

PVC doesn't work at night, but CSP most definitely does.

(By _working_ , I mean a solar thermal plant is providing power well after sunset.)

</comment><comment><USER32> Theres a Dutch study indicating that we're rapidly approaching supply chain limits for the rare metals required for renewable energy, both solar and wind. I wonder how long renewables can continue dropping in price.

<comment><USER26> Solar, maybe, for now. But I can't imagine that there is a need for large amounts of exotic metals in a wind turbine, which is a simple generator. Exotic materials might give a percent or three more operational efficiency, but they're not actually necessary.

<comment><USER32> As far as I know neodymium is currently used for magnets in a lot of wind turbines and electric motors among other things. It's not rare but the vast majority of it comes from China right now. I can't speak to how much efficiency it adds.

<comment><USER33> Wind turbines are currently over 100 meters high and installed into places that see lot of wind. It's a rule of thumb that you should keep the natural frequency of any large steel building above 20 hz. Swiching to heavier magnets will increase the mass of the generator which is mounted on top. That in turn will make the whole thing more wobbly (ie lower the frequency). To combat this you need thicker frame. Which in turn will cost more and weight more.

It's completely possible that current windmill designs are only possible with neodymium magnets. We would need to ask turbine designer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Cool Earth Solar company unlike normal solar panels, it produces spherical panels, thus producing 400 times more energy than normal panels. [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4bf1/d93a9467608c9c1d1536f3...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4bf1/d93a9467608c9c1d1536f3a9179d97f5ce2c.pdf)

<comment><USER35> "With no occlusion, the flat-panel collector is more efficient than the spherical-surface collector by a factor of more than 2."

"Considering the occlusion factor, the spherical-surface collector can be the better choice in certain situations"

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The sun always shines - somewhere in the world.

Is the problem of solar power at night more of an issue with transmission?

</comment><comment><USER37> _" Solar doesn't work at night. Wind farms go idle when breezes slack. So until battery systems are cheap enough for generators to stockpile electricity for hours at a time, renewables can't constantly provide power like coal and gas."_

This is the crux of the problem. We don't just need cheaper batteries, we need entirely new battery/storage technology. Current battery production is an ecological disaster in and of itself.

 _" Still, they're starting to compete on their own. The proof is in the sales agreements. For years, clean-energy developers needed 20- or 25-year power- purchase contracts to ensure a return on investment. Now they're building wind and solar farms with agreements for 15 years or less -- with the expectation that projects will compete against gas- and coal-fired plants in wholesale markets after the deals conclude."_

This may just be speculating that governments will be issuing all kinds of premiums on fossil technologies instead of directly subsidizing renewables, which is far more likely than actually switching to renewables.

<comment><USER26> Storing energy isn't exactly magical. Humans built the first dam nearly 3000 years ago. It's simply a matter of cost, and that's a combination of situation and experience. Batteries, hydro, compressed air, thermal, gravity... all of these things work, and are known quantities.

It doesn't take a breakthrough in technology to say "If we build a tank for compressed air that is volume X, to pressure Y, it can store energy Z; and thermal losses for conversion in and out are A, and it costs B to build". This is completely ordinary engineering.

<comment><USER37> > It's simply a matter of cost, and that's a combination of situation and > experience. Batteries, hydro, compressed air, thermal, gravity... all of > these things work, and are known quantities.

 _Everything_ is a matter of cost. If cost didn't matter, we could just suck up all the CO2 from the air. That technology already exists too, and it's a "known quantity". The problem is, cost _does_ matter and there is such a thing as "prohibitively expensive", especially if we're looking at countries that aren't as wealthy.

Furthermore, relative costs matter. What are we _not_ building if we are building all this buffering infrastructure?

> It doesn't take a breakthrough in technology to say "If we build a tank for > compressed air that is volume X, to pressure Y, it can store energy Z; and > thermal losses for conversion in and out are A, and it costs B to build". > This is completely ordinary engineering.

Sure, but if B is too large, it just won't happen. That's why you need a technological breakthrough to get B within the realms of feasibility.

<comment><USER26> I'm not seeing anyone state any numbers, though. Just a bunch of handwaving about how it's totally impossible, which strikes me as simplistic BS.

<comment><USER37> > I'm not seeing anyone state any numbers, though.

You aren't stating any numbers either, yet you seem very confident that it can work out.

> Just a bunch of handwaving about how it's totally impossible, which strikes > me as simplistic BS.

Same to you, just a bunch of handwaving how it's totally possible, which I might call "simplistic BS" as well.

I could give some of the source material that my opinions are based on, but then you will just complain about how the sources are biased or how the calculations are too pessimistic, and so on. Been there, done that, it's a waste of time. Therefore, I suggest you do your own research and believe what you want to believe. I don't care if you change your mind.

<comment><USER26> Without going back and digging for sources (google it yourself), existing nuclear costs about $100/Mwh. Coal is around there, too (this is round number, different sources have slight variations). Onshore wind and natural gas are currently pushing $40, and PV solar is under $60 and dropping rapidly.

Numerous nuclear plants in the US (and MANY coal plants) are being shut down before end-of-life, due to losing key customers to cheaper alternatives. It costs more to keep the plant running than to shut it down.

We have a couple of decades of data on wind consistency and variation, scaling from minutes to years - enough data to do very reliable projections on storage needs. Solar has a consistent schedule, which also helps projection, and of course we know loads. So computing just how much storage is needed is a straightforward exercise.

Tesla and other companies are stepping hard into the utility-scale storage game. It's a very exciting field because there are billions to be made. And there are billions to be made, because once costs drop below a certain line, wind/solar + storage will be cheaper than anything except fracked gas, and will take over the coal/nuclear markets as fast as it can be built.

A lot of people who are smarter with money and know the field more than you and me are expecting to make fortunes on this. That says more than any numbers I could throw at you.

<comment><USER37> > Without going back and digging for sources (google it yourself), existing > nuclear costs about $100/Mwh. Coal is around there, too (this is round > number, different sources have slight variations). Onshore wind and natural > gas are currently pushing $40, and PV solar is under $60 and dropping > rapidly.

So what? This is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Coal, nuclear, natural gas are all delivering stable supply 24/7\. PV and Wind are highly volatile both intraday and seasonally. Why don't you add in the cost of storage?

> We have a couple of decades of data on wind consistency and variation, > scaling from minutes to years - enough data to do very reliable projections > on storage needs. Solar has a consistent schedule, which also helps > projection, and of course we know loads. So computing just how much storage > is needed is a straightforward exercise.

Computing the cost is not the problem. Paying the cost is the problem:

[https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/08/12/new-us-study-finds- re...](https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/08/12/new-us-study-finds-renewable- energy-storage-costs-need-to-drop-90/)

> A lot of people who are smarter with money and know the field more than you > and me are expecting to make fortunes on this.

It's a reasonably safe bet that western governments will push green energy and penalize fossil energy in the future. Of course you can make a lot of money off of that.

> That says more than any numbers I could throw at you.

It really only says that speculators are speculating that green energy will yield a big payout.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It takes an immense amount of coal to make steel turbines.

It takes an immense amount of natural gas peaking facilities to counterbalance Solar and Wind's draw downs.

Manufacturing photovoltaic panels with low-carbon electricity (for example, in a solar-powered factory), and installing them in a high-carbon-intensity country would tip the balance. Right now we do the opposite.

Solar actually INCREASES gas consumption.

You have to provide for a fixed power demand with 2 systems.

-Combined cycle methane gas plant (cc)

-Methane Peaker backed Solar PV(pvp)

"Epvp=Epeak/(1-Cpv)

Your effective time average methane energy consumption efficiency (electrical energy out / chemical heat in) for pvp is going to be the peaker efficiency divided by 1 - the capacity factor of the PV:

Epvp = Epeak / (1 - Cpv)

The methane energy efficiency of cc, Ecc, is fixed One can find the methane breakeven capacity factor, Cpvbe by setting Epvp=Ecc and solving for Cpv: Cpvbe = 1 - Epeak/Ecc

Epeak ~ a generous 42%

Ecc ~ 62%

Plugging these numbers in yields:

Cpvbe = 1-42/62 = 32% which means unless your capacity factor meets or exceeds 32% that solar imposes a net methane opportunity cost backing it up with a gas peaker plant in comparison to gas combined cycle.

You can find the capacity factors for solar here: [https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b&fbclid=IwAR3Oj5a7FUildPrxVyVfErx- kb997hbl5KGWTjf0IDIVB2KtLar2sEFFIfA")

<comment><USER17> This is a very poorly worded comment. I had to read it multiple times to get your point: Gas plants that run continuously (combined-cycle) have much higher efficiencies than peaker plants, so solar+peaker can have a lower efficiency than combined-cycle gas plants on their own.

I have a few questions about this. How do combined-cycle plants adjust to changes in demand? Do we need to compare solar+peaker to combined-cycle+peaker to have a fair comparison? Or do combined-cycle plants allow for lower changes in output than peakers, such that (e.g.) a 10% solar 90% combined-cycle system could adjust as well? The grid is a whole system, not just two power plants.

Finally, nobody is advocating for just solar+peaker. Solar+wind+peaker will easily get you over the 32% threshold, as solar and wind tend to provide power at different times (not perfectly, sadly). If you have some storage available (preferably hydro, but possibly other), then you get an even higher effective capacity factor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Remember, one of the main arguments of the climate change is a hoax, fossil fuels forever gang is that switching to renewable energy would make electricity so expensive it would mean the end of modern society and we would all go back to living in crude huts.

</comment><comment><USER40> As usual this where Bloomberg acts as Solar is similar to NG. Solar and Wind are widely dependent on location. Your results of NG in Phoenix or Chicago are going to be more or less same - you cannot say that for Solar.

At the right places Solar is profitable - but at the grid interface level its not same as having NG. For all the solar panels that are visible and there are countless "invisible" massive diesel generator back-ups and an inefficiently used NG base-load generator somewhere.

Its very rare Solar-Wind get their baseload from hydro (its possible). But again, HN being HN .. Ye Ye Ye!

These headlines make people think some how ONG is replacable and all it takes moar and moar Solar and Wind, and there is nothing farther from truth.

The enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, its illusion of knowledge.

<comment><USER41> Solar and wind as you said are widely dependent on location; they have the courtesy of also being widely dependent on the time of the day, and the forecast that day.

The price angle is not the correct one to estimate quality of an energy source. When the wind blows and the sun shines, NG is cheap because we overproduce and we have to get rid of MWh. Germany even reaches negative prices quite regularly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I don't get these titles. Solar is overcoming the subsidies fossil fuels get for freely dumping carbon or they no longer need the government price alignment?

</comment><comment><USER43> Has this translated to me as a consumer being able to buy rooftop solar for cheaper? I live in FL and am considering it.

<comment><USER21> You'll pay about $2.70/watt in Florida. Payback period will be based on whether you're paying cash or financing, system size, and your current utility rates.

Much cheaper than in the past, but whether it makes financial sense is a calculation each household has to perform.

I'd suggest getting three quotes from local installers to kick off the process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> "This performs a wealth transfer from the poor to the middle class, when the middle class can buy partially subsidized panels but the poor can't, and then the panels "drop" the cost of power by raising it for everyone else, offering cheaper power to those who can afford it on the backs of those who cannot."

<comment><USER15> This is partly a result of the monopolistic status of utilities. Usually, in a competitive market, if you add extra supply or reduce demand, the price drops. In a monopoly where the company is allowed to maintain profits, the reduced demand means less revenue and profits so they increase price. In a free market with lots of players, the profits would drop, the prices would drop, and marginal players would simply go bankrupt.

It's clever marketing by utilities, however, to blame their abuse of monopoly power on solar power subsidies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> cant read. paywall. nice internets.

</comment><comment><USER45> great story

</comment><comment><USER46> This is only because for some reason when we talk about wind and solar we don't factor in the cost of coal, nuclear, gas and oil which are being used as backup.

Furthermore, with wind and solar, we don't factor in things like decommission like you would on nuclear.

<comment><USER28> Nuclear decomissioning is the only one that's especially expensive; I suspect if you look at most of the actual wind farm contracts you'll see a decomissioning cost in there somewhere.

Factoring in the "backup" generators makes no sense in a free market electricity economy. That's like saying you need to factor in the cost of a taxi to train tickets, in case the train is broken down.

<comment><USER46> You don't see that in there, unfortunately.

And of course, it makes sense to factor in backup energy as you can't actually deliver consistent energy with wind and solar alone.

So the true cost of wind and solar should obviously include the cost of running these backups AND it would then of course also mean some of those externalities.

Anything else is dishonest comparison IMO which the above article is guilty of.

<comment><USER28> But that's not how an electricity spot market works. The market price is instantaneous as the energy is delivered.

<comment><USER46> That's how you need to discuss this in order to get to the true cost otherwise you are making decisions based on incorrect data.

Wind can't deliver enough energy it's relying on other types. So any discussion that includes wind or solar as a solution needs to include what backup are needed and what that cost.

The reverse mind you is not true.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


British Psychological Society calls for "paradigm shift" in psychiatry - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/may/12/psychiatrists-under-fire-mental-health

<comment><USER2> The "British Psychological Society" needs to review their undergraduate coursework on the concept of "projection".</comment>


HTML5 Boilerplate removes pink text-selection highlight - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/commit/1d320b59a390041f25cf87d790f6472a25a512ef It was an iconic h5bp element, users complain. <comment><USER2> Aww too bad, it used to be amusing to come across sites and be able to tell that they didn't override this.</comment>


Convertible note terms - what's typical now? - <AUTHOR>

My co-founder and I are meeting with an angel next week to negotiate financing of a convertible note. We'd love some insight into or examples of ideal/realistic terms - especially cap and discount.<p>many many thanks. <comment><USER2> Here's a great article from Manu Kumar, the founder of K9 Ventures, on convertible notes.

[http://k9ventures.com/blog/2011/03/22/thoughts-on- convertibl...](http://k9ventures.com/blog/2011/03/22/thoughts-on-convertible- notes/)</comment>


Show HN: Prophetly, Interactive Time Series Forecasting Using Prophet and Plotly - <AUTHOR> http://prophetly.github.io <comment><AUTHOR> I started building this to learn React and Flux.

For now, it's in "Alpha" stage, you can upload a "csv" file and select the "datestamp" column and the "y" column (with numeric values) you want to predict and it will generate interactive charts in browser.

Please let me know if you have any feature requirements or issue.

[https://github.com/Prophetly](https://github.com/Prophetly)</comment>


Op-Ed Columnist: Elon Musk, the Donald of Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/opinion/elon-musk-tesla.html <comment><USER2> Given that Elon Musk has been arguing with the mainstream media over Twitter recently, I'm not sure a NYT columnist has the most thoughtful view of Elon.</comment>