Cheap Solar Power - <AUTHOR> http://www.keith.seas.harvard.edu/blog-1/cheapsolarpower <comment><USER2> "Admits" seems a bit harsh, like he was doing his best to hide something from the world.

By all accounts, it looks like he had written out a reasonable explanation as to why he predicted solar would not become cost effective. At the end of the day, if something doesn't make financial sense, it won't last long without subsidies from the government.

The assumptions behind his predictions changed and therefore so did the conclusion. Seems pretty reasonable.

Like he says, solar power's intermittency is still an issue in non-sunny places, but in areas with lots of sunlight, the landscape of power generation is changing for the better.

<comment><USER3> I particularly liked his point about bringing processes with a high electricity demand to those areas and cutting down on cost across the board. He gives aluminum, ammonia, and desalination as examples, which could do a lot for reducing costs of production while still overall "greening" the process. If they can take advantage of the cycling in prices, I can see regions like the American Southwest selling this as a business incentive.

<comment><USER4> The transportation fuels example is even more exciting, IMO. Transportation fuels are basically simple hydrocarbons that burn with oxygen to turn into CO2 and H2O. There's only engineering, capital, and energy costs that need to be overcome - then we can run that process in reverse and turning our current transportation infrastructure carbon-neutral.

<comment><USER5> > run the process in reverse

Does the fact that CO2 makes up a very small portion of the atmosphere make this hard?

<comment> semi-extrinsic One of the big financial problems for CCS (carbon capture and storage) is that CO2 is essentially worthless. If a market would suddenly arise for concentrated CO2, I do not think we would have much of a problem to fill demand.

<comment><USER6> So, really, if one wanted to fix CCS, you would just need to find a good application for CO2, like with peanuts and peanut butter.

<comment><USER7> I like the idea of making carbon fibers from CO2.

[http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/201...](http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2015/august/co2.html)

<comment> semi-extrinsic Sure, there are many interesting things you can make from CO2. The problem is the sheer amount of CO2 we need to capture and store, which utterly dwarfs the production volumes of basically anything you can think of.

We're talking hundreds of gigatonnes of CO2 that have to be stored over a century of CCS. At high temperatures and pressures, when the CO2 is in a dense (supercritical) state, as in geological storage formations, this corresponds to hundreds of billions of cubic meters.

It's a thousand Hoover dams each year full of dense phase CO2. It's truly mindboggling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Keith is one of the authors of the Ecomodernist Manifesto (2015). In the Manifesto they say:

The scale of land use and other environmental impacts necessary to power the world on biofuels or many other renewables are such that we doubt they provide a sound pathway to a zero-carbon low-footprint future.

High-efficiency solar cells produced from earth-abundant materials are an exception and have the potential to provide many tens of terawatts on a few percent of the Earth's surface. Present-day solar technologies will require substantial innovation to meet this standard and the development of cheap energy storage technologies that are capable of dealing with highly variable energy generation at large scales.

Nuclear fission today represents the only present-day zero-carbon technology with the demonstrated ability to meet most, if not all, of the energy demands of a modern economy. However, a variety of social, economic, and institutional challenges make deployment of present-day nuclear technologies at scales necessary to achieve significant climate mitigation unlikely. A new generation of nuclear technologies that are safer and cheaper will likely be necessary for nuclear energy to meet its full potential as a critical climate mitigation technology.

<comment><USER9> Ref: [http://www.ecomodernism.org](http://www.ecomodernism.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really have to take exception with a statement in the opening here:

> rooftop solar seem systems which are (arguably) little more than green bling > for the wealthy

My rooftop solar system (installed in late 2013) is 2.5 years in to what is looking to be a 5.9 year break-even point. After 6 years I will be earning $4-5k/year from it. Even if I had financed this (not a solar lease, those are usually structured so the leasing company gets all the benefits) at a high interest rate, it would turn out to be one of my best investments on a $/return basis.

The fact that basically don't have a monthly power bill (which is substantial in hot parts of PG&E land) is my #1 benefit here, as reducing my monthly budget by that amount makes the rest of my life that much nicer. The fact that I have reduced my 'carbon footprint' is barely on my radar compared to the financial benefits here....

I did find it crazy that the installer/designer wanted to know if I wanted more visible colors, or a portion of the panels facing the from top the house so they were more noticeable. I suppose some people just have to green- signal...

<comment><USER11> >After 6 years I will be earning $4-5k/year from it.

Can you point us in the direction of a good write-up on net-metering? I'm sure different jurisdictions have different rules. I was under the impression that net metering was only good up until your yearly production was equal to your demand. Or are you saying that the $4-5k/year is at wholesale rates?

<comment><USER10> If I'm not paying that $4-5k to PG&E, and the installation costs have been recouped, then that $4-5k/yr is profit. Money is fungible - if you manage it well, you get the same net effect from preventing it's loss as you do from earning it.

<comment><USER11> Ah, got it. Thanks. Although if anyone has a good article on net metering, I'd like to read it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Could this be a solution in the EU's problem of bringing jobs and wealth to North Africa? Thereby encouraging immigrants to stay in their homeland?

The Sahara has some of the Sunniest sky's in the world. Maybe its time to spend a few hundred billion and build those solar plants in North Africa.

<comment><USER13> Panels would be build elsewhere, installation is once in two or three decades, maintenance is minimal and low skill. The only profit is land lease, which will only benefit those that have plenty of money already. So I think no, this won't bring jobs or wealth to North Africa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "It does not mean rooftop solar in New England makes sense"

Someone forgot to tell my neighbors - in New England. Rooftop solar everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER15> So year after year it is becoming evident that solar is the future and yet very little seems to happen elsewhere to accommodate this. Solar cells produce DC. Batteries which can store the solar power uses DC. Our iPhones, laptops, flat screens, electric cars use DC. Yet the connection between this DC power production and DC power consumption happens with an AC line wasting power.

It is also a dumb line. Solar power production varies considerably and a lot of power consumption is flexible but we don't have any intelligence built into the power distribution network to be able to tell devices when to use power and when not to.

Imagine if smart cables went into our laptops so they could charge when power was abundant/cheap and use battery when it wasn't. Electric cars could automatically start charging when power was cheap and stop when it got expensive. Washing machines could have timer function which would start them as soon as power prices were low.

</comment><comment><USER16> When will this "duck pricing" actually trickle down to consumers? I'm on a PG&E rate plan that charges me an incredible $0.75/kWh during the afternoons of selected days. According to the figures in the CAISO paper, these are the hours of least net demand.

<comment><USER10> >I'm on a PG&E rate plan that charges me an incredible $0.75/kWh during the afternoons of selected days.

Yeah, PG&E is practically begging their customers to install solar. The biggest savings come on the days/times with the best solar potential, and dropping out of that highest tiers can be a real win.

<comment><USER16> You think so? It seems like the rate system is stacked against solar. They just made the top tier cheaper, and raised the bottom tier so that your very first joule costs more. If you had installed solar based on the savings of staying out of the top tiers, now your payoff looks less certain.

<comment><USER10> The top tier is still 3.5-4x the cost of the bottom tier, making for a big chunk of your bill to whack off with a smallish solar setup

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Given that Solar power is the fundamental source of energy leading to petroleum based energy (starting with photosynthesis), it's surprising that we still rely on petroleum to the degree we do today. In 100 years this would perhaps be something people would find shocking (like how we are shocked today at how mainstream slavery used to be 150 odd years ago).

Solar Energy is unlimited, cheap and clean. My guess would be that energy will eventually end up being near free.

<comment><USER18> Because history made us build structures and lifestyles that require oil class energy density. We surely don't need it since we were born without. We don't need all of this. Not to that extent, we could cut worldwide transportation. We could eat less. Rethink housing. Even internet[1].

I'd like to see the time when energy will lack.

Sometimes I wonder how we could rebootstrap technology in a frugal manner. Have shelter, a bit of comfort, a predictable enough supply not to worry too much.

[1] just the other day I put a gif on imgur, 1Million views, a few TB of bandwidth.. I felt bad. So much for this. And that's not the most viewed, nor the longest. Imagine how much is used everyday.

<comment><USER19> Don't feel bad. You did not waste any measurable amount of electricity. We constantly waste electricity by not utilizing the networks we have built to their full capacity.

(Ignoring that servers being busier without a good caching infrastructure tends to ramp up resource usage and pull more power)

<comment><USER18> Even considering end point caching I feel bad. Good point about networks being already on anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Submitters: Please don't editorialize titles when submitting stories. The HN guidelines ask you to use the original title unless it is misleading or linkbait.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

(Submitted title was "Harvard Physicist, Long-Time Solar Skeptic Admits Solar Power Now Makes Sense".)

</comment><comment><USER21> I wish there was more analysis around energy storage (mainly because that's what my startup does). I think it's often overlooked in the press when talking about the future of solar. We're working to flatten the duck curve that solar created.

<comment><USER22> I would love to see some good numbers about how much it costs to do grid-scale storage and how those costs are changing over time

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is solar using rare metals that we will run out of soon? So will in the end solar fail anyway?

<comment><USER24> "Limited supplies of five rare-earth minerals pose a threat to increasing use of clean-energy technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels, a U.S. Energy Department report found."

Source is from 2012: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-01-05/five- rare-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-01-05/five-rare-earths- crucial-for-clean-energy-seen-in-short-supply)

<comment><USER25> >The substances -- dysprosium, terbium, europium, neodymium and yttrium -- face potential shortages until 2015, according to the report, which reiterates concerns identified a year ago.

So, it's past 2015, apparently these shortages didn't materialize.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A bit off topic....

Currently Hydro power makes up a small (6%) but significant portion of the energy mix in the US.

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

When you look at just the clean energy sources in the US this percentage is greater obviously. Also, other countries rely more on Hydro than the US (Canada and China come to mind).

Has there been modeling done on what global warming will do to those Hydro power sources? For example, I can imagine drought is not good for reliable Hydro power. Has declining Hydro power been accounted for in possible future clean energy mixes?

</comment><comment><USER27> That's fascinating. I especially like where he's going on the cost of synthetic gasoline. I'm a little iffy on it (what's the source for CO2 by the ton? Atmosphere?), but if sufficiently cheap solar electricity can generate gasoline straight from the air at a price that rivals fossil fuel, it both solves the storage problem (gasoline is wonderful high density storage), and makes banning fossil fuel via regulation an achievable goal.

<comment><USER28> I always ask about synthetic fuels as an alternative to electric vehicles and have never gotten a good answer on it. We already have a huge liquid fuel distribution network built up. Why re-invent the wheel?

<comment><USER27> Cost. Synthetic fuels are very expensive. The ethanol industry sucks - it's just a fancy crop subsidy.

<comment><USER25> That's a biofuel, not a synthetic fuel. The difference being biological process versus a chemical synthesis process.

BTW, I accidentally downvoted you, did not mean to! Sorry for the loss of an internet point. It wasn't mean to discourage your comment.

<comment><USER27> Synthetic fuels have it even worse, I think, in terms of cost. Unless we can get a really cheap form of electricity that is clean (solar) and connect it to a process that it more efficient than simply growing corn (or other biomass), then synthetic fuels will have the same problem. They can't be cost- competitive with fossil fuels without massive subsidy.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I agree. Making hydrogen, the first step for pretty much any synthetic fuel, is exceedingly inefficient. That means that transmitting electricity long distances is usually going to be much more cost-effective than making liquid fuels.

But I think that as electricity gets cheaper and cheaper, and as fossil fuels have a pigovian tax levied on them, that eventually synthetic or biofuels will be more cost effective than fossil fuels. Electricity is going to get super cheap, and there's going to be times when supply outpaces demand. If the electricity would go to waste otherwise, something that's 40% efficient may be a good use of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Imagine an earth 1000 years from now where countries on one side of the planet help out the other side via solar power through superconducting power cables that have little power loss over 10,000 miles.

Since each side gets sunlight somewhere, no batteries needed. Of course 1000 years from now they could solve the battery problem too where each residence has its own low cost, safe storage.

Or 1000 years from now terrorists dirty-bomb everyone. Sigh.

<comment><USER11> >Or 1000 years from now terrorists dirty-bomb everyone.

...Well, on a more optimistic note, a dirty-bombs, while they may destroy property values and cause cleanup issues, don't really kill any more than a conventional/kinetic bomb. I think they may be one of the best-case scenarios when it comes to a terrorist strike, since the causalities will be low, but there will be a lot of "frenzy" about the invisible radiation. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, or if there are silent aerosolized short-half-life "bombs" in existence that are "detonated" secretly inside of buildings so that people are accumulating long term exposures unknowingly).

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if room-ish temperature superconductors appear much sooner than 1,000 years from now. And it will definitively be interesting to see how high of energy densities SMES (Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage) will get to in the next 20 years with existing cryogenic superconductors.

[http://snf.ieeecsc.org/abstracts/stp443-high-field-hts- smes-...](http://snf.ieeecsc.org/abstracts/stp443-high-field-hts-smes-coil)

<comment><USER29> Look at all the cancer from 9/11 and that was just fine particles in the air.

Now imagine radioactive fine particles with half-life of decades.

Sure, the death isn't instantaneous. But the suffering and early death will be massive. After the US nuked Japan (twice) the real damage was to those left living for the short time afterwards and all the radioactivity an slow death.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> In the meanwhile, a few other sources argue that the overall ERORI (energy invested vs. energy produced) is well below a somehow 'sustainable' level. The impression I'm getting is that the day oil/gas production starts to fall due to geological limits, so will the production of photovoltaic & windmills.

Please see: [https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.files.wordpress.com...](https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/ferroni- y-hopkirk-2016-energy-return-on-energy-invested-eroei-for-photo.pdf)

And: [http://science-and-energy.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/201...](http://science-and-energy.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/03/20160307-Des-Houches-Case-Study-for-Solar-PV.pdf)

And: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqhC6uI8TUY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqhC6uI8TUY) (for french speakers out there)

Please do convince me that we can run the current industrial civilization, at current rates of energy usage, with only solar & wind, on a long enough run, without oil.

<comment><USER31> If solar power is cheaper than coal without subsides, it has greater than 1 EROEI by a big margin, and the question is settled.

Bottom-up studies suffer from a big diversity of flaws, and there are plenty of them with obvious bias both ways.

<comment><USER30> Fossil fuels _are_ the base subsidy. It's hard to see how a manufactured product will be cheaper than fosil fuels consumed on the spot (as coal is primarly a local consumption resource). Also the economy of scale principle works here too: how can a (coal) thermal plant which feeds a region, cities, can be replaced by a collection of small scale devices that produce electricity, and pretend to be cheaper? Nothing will ever be cheaper than coal to produce electricity. There's a good reason why the industrial revolution started with coal and not with renewables (which for the record were already available in Europe for a few centuries before that - it was already widely used since the 12th century)

<comment><USER31> If you use fossil fuels to create an energy supply, and the energy from this supply is cheaper than the original fossil fuel, that means your supply has bigger than 1 EROEI. (Unless your new supply has a subside.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Wind and geothermal is good options as well. The biggest problem is storage.

<comment><USER33> A big problem with wind energy in Germany is a very vocal minority of old people who think that wind park visually destructs nature and it looks horrible.

Personally I think wind parks look awesome but there is a lot of opposition.

<comment><USER2> That's what I mean. Wind might be generated "for free," but one cost is what it looks like.

Another is how many birds it kills a year. ([http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds- do-w...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind- turbines-really-kill-180948154/?no-ist))

That's not to say we shouldn't build it. Just that we need to consider what it costs before we do.

<comment><USER34> If you check what bird conservation organisations say, they are generally pro wind power, because most of the alternatives are worse for birds.

They do want to avoid building them on busy migration routes though.

Amazingly popular talking point amongst hypocritical fossil fuel industry supporters and semi-professional contrarians though.

<comment><USER2> Sure. Anyone pro- or anti-wind will say whatever argument they can to try to convince people.

All I'm saying is before we decide to build more wind turbines, we should have an honest accounting of all of the benefits and costs laid out. There are locations where they make sense and places where they don't. And there are levels where some government support might make sense, and some levels where they don't.

Even if people support one form of power generation over another, there should always be a limit.

<comment><USER25> I don't think that there's an equal distribution of people willing to say whatever in favor of their end goals. Certainly not "anybody." Most pro-wind people are that way because of an honest accounting of the pros and cons, as there's no other reason to be in favor of it. There's not a super-strong political or economic constituency behind it. Those who are anti-wind however...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> So if this has the potential to change the future energy economy, what are some good investments to make now? Should I be looking at SolarCity, who sell the panels, or the energy companies like Sempra, PG&E, Edison? Something else?

<comment><USER36> Probably the safest 'investment' you can make is to put panels on your roof (assuming your utility is supportive, barring that wait for batteries to get cheap/good). Solar stocks are a minefield at the moment (largely thanks to SunEd[1]). There are also things called yield co's which are holding companies for energy projects that largely focus on dividends. They are kinda like REITs. But it is worth mentioning that these are relatively new investment vehicles, and they still share some risk with the parent company[2]

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sunedison- collapse-201...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sunedison- collapse-20160504-story.html) [2] [http://www.reuters.com/article/us- sunedison-inc-yieldco-idUS...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-sunedison- inc-yieldco-idUSKCN0XM0A2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> If solar is such a good investment, why aren't power companies creating solar fields with a sense of urgency? Sure, there are a token few, but this is mainly for PR reasons or funded by grants ETC.

When businesses (wholesalers and consumers) start going to solar on a grand scale, Solar will have finally arrived as a cost effective alternative. Wake me when this happens.

<comment><USER38> Wake up! It's happening already in places with lots of sun (or high electricity costs). Examples are, much of Australia, Hawaii, California and others. As solar gets cheaper the viable territory expands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'll start paying attention when a solar company is formed and becomes profitable without any reliance on subsidies.

I'm not holding my breath.</comment>


Anti-wi-fi paint offers security | bbc.co.uk - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8279549.stm <comment><USER2> Works great until someone opens the door.

<comment><USER3> Try this anti-wifi hat!

(I guess you could do an airlock-style design.)</comment></comment>


Twitter acquires Mixer Labs, creators of GeoAPI - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twitter.com/2009/12/mixing-it-up-at-795-folsom-st.html

<comment><USER2> wow. fastest acquisition, ever?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=938936></comment>


Valley Forged: How One Man Made the Indie Video Game Sensation Stardew Valley - <AUTHOR> https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile <comment><USER2> I really love stories about people who become totally, utterly absorbed in something, to the point where they obsessively spend time on it, in a kind of natural sense that does not require checklists, reminders, etc. It's just always their top priority, like an addiction, except with meaning and depth.

I envy the absorption in a creative activity and also the growth they experience in terms of their skills. Think about it - at this point this guy isn't just a great programmer, he is also an accomplished designer, artist, writer and musician. A true renaissance person.

I'm quite focused compared to many people and I don't waste a lot of time with social media, television, etc., but I'm nowhere near like this guy.

About four years ago I decided I wanted to learn a second language and I poured a lot of effort into learning Spanish over a three year period. I got to the point where I could carry on a conversation with a Spanish-speaking person quite naturally, read the news in Spanish, etc., but I never felt entirely _fluent_. Then things got busy and my attention shifted and now, a year after I was last really actively learning, I know my skills have deteriorated.

I want to get back into it but I'm struggling to find the motivation. It feels like work and I already work hard. And truthfully, it _always_ felt like work, it's just that I really wanted the experience of understanding and being able to speak another language. I got to that point, but I don't feel like I took it far enough - and this seems true of so many things in my life. Pretty good programmer (at one point), decent enough entrepreneur, not a bad father, solid writer, crappy musician but having fun with it, kind of fit but not terribly so, etc. In short, jack of all trades, master of none.

I realize I'm rambling a bit, but to tie it back to where I began, obsession seems like a bit of a cognitive shortcut to me, a path to excellence that feels less like work and more like addiction. Is that true or am I just intellectually lazy? I want to dive into something, to find something that holds my attention raptly for the long term and generates true personal growth along the way, but I don't know what that would be, and in four decades of living on this planet I don't think I've ever come across anything that fits that bill.

<comment><USER3> Wow. I understand what you mean completely, in my gut. The feeling of throwing yourself into something completely, not to better yourself or to prove anything, but simply because you must, is probably the greatest feeling in the world for me.

<comment><USER4> I used to be like this when I was younger. I remember spending my summer break in my room learning a 3d modeling software just to make some stupid animations... It was this internal drive that I want to accomplish this that waned through the years I think

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Eric is not only a genius who made a fantastic game but he's a nice, down-to- earth person. I met him once. He had a table at one of the PAX cons and was hanging out with fans, many whom had him sign stuff. This was after it had sold enough copies to make him a millionaire. He didn't have to be there, he choose to do it.

<comment><USER6> I think I met him at the same PAX. Really nice guy. Happy for his success.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While it is great to admire the care and dedication that went into this game let's not draw conclusions that Eric's approach is a widely applicable recipe to long term wealth and healthy relationships.

This is classic survivorship bias.

There are countless stories of one person obsessing over some project, making progress, sometimes even shipping the project yet not getting the recognition/fame/money.

Meanwhile they are losing relationships and health in the process.

The great novel is a common culprit, but the great app is a fast rising contender.

The main thing to remember is "building/shipping is not enough".

In fact the one intriguing thing glossed over in the article is how he managed to get a distributorship deal.

<comment><USER8> See that story: Did I just waste 3 years? [0] on a failed indie game.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18092108](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18092108)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, this is amazing and old school - doing the art, sound, music, programming. I think the only advantage he had was he could look up anything on the internet and _possibly_ find an answer to technical road blocks, he still had to polish and rework for five years (and not feel pressure to get or work a regular 9-5 and keep his relationship going, though it sounds like it may have been a close call there towards the end with the three playtesters helping immensely).

<comment><USER10> On that note, I highly recommend Papers, Please[1].

It's a one-person project as well, and a truly amazing work of art.

Played it with my partner to get _all_ the endings and achievements; it's been an amazing experience.

[1][http://papersplea.se/](http://papersplea.se/)

<comment><USER11> What I loved about Papers, Please is that it was actually a proper, fun game. Depressing too, but fun. I rarely come across 'art project' style games that pull their weight game-wise.

<comment><USER10> It really does have excellent gameplay.

Although I wouldn't call the game depressing - I found the satire funny as hell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good read. But kind of underwhelmed how the author glosses over how the steps of how developer finally connected with the real world and got his creation out there.

I think many of us can relate to the obsession with detail, but hearing how the publisher discovered him and their impressions of his work would have been a nice pay-off.

<comment><USER13> This piece is mostly about the emotional side of it, and kind of romances the whole thing. I don't think you can take away much practical advice with such articles.

For example, when I read "working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 4 years", that's just impossible.

And a Kotaku interview confirms this ([http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/03/21/the- past-present-and-futu...](http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/03/21/the-past-present- and-future-of-stardew-valley)):

>> Kotaku: How did you avoid burning out? How did you avoid coming to hate Stardew Valley?

Eric Barone: There were periods where I had an idea or something that I was really passionate about, and in that moment I would work like crazy. I actually just literally wanted to see that thing come to life as quick as possible because it was fresh in my mind. I had this fire to create that.

Then there would be other periods where I just kind of didn't feel like working, so while I would sit there and attempt to work I probably did a lot of alt tabbing and just browsing Reddit and stuff like that. I would waste time, and I would be a lot less productive. <<

So he's human like all of us, but it's still really impressive what he was able to pull of, no question about that. He's an inspiration for all lone game developers.

I'm just saying, take all these articles with a grain of salt. It's journalists doing their journalist thing.

<comment><USER14> This is a great point.

The moment I read "12 hrs a day, 7 days a week" I felt very disappointed with my own style of working. I usually work at max around 1/2 to 1 hour a day, even though I spend 3 - 4 hours on the PC. But during binges of feverish thoughts, I lose track of time in work, and can easily not notice 4 - 5 hours consumed.

<comment><USER12> Don't be too hard on yourself. 12 hours a day is likely an overstatement. If not, going over 5 hours of intense "flow state" each day would bring diminishing returns.

You can be disciplined at staring at the screen, but you still need that genetative tide. That comes from what's yielded by not being obsessed by the immrdiate. So, again, in my experiencr, spending time present in the real world is beneficial for your ventures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This was a really nice read. In the past, I've read or seen pieces detailing the personal story of a particular indie game developer, and often I walk away feeling kind of grated by their personalities (See "Indie Game: The Movie" for a particularly high octane example). But after reading it I felt warmed by how much you could see the artist in his art.

</comment><comment><USER16> I recently started playing it multiplayer with my son ( 7 ). I had watched him play it solo before but didn't think it was my type of game. But boy, the amount of detail in the game is fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER17> Wow, I didn't even like Stardew Valley very much, but there is a level of polish to that game that is unbelievable for a single person to have accomplished.

</comment><comment><USER18> It'll be interesting to see if switching to Rust will enhance the already remarkable productivity of this game studio.

[https://www.rust-lang.org/pdfs/Rust-Chucklefish- Whitepaper.p...](https://www.rust-lang.org/pdfs/Rust-Chucklefish- Whitepaper.pdf)

<comment><USER19> Stardew Valley is built on Monogame. Also Chucklefish is the publisher, not the developer...

<comment><USER20> Their new game is in Rust, not Stardew Valley. And you're right that they were only the publishers for it.

<comment><USER19> Is there anything approaching the XNA/Monogame content pipeline in the Rust world? Something like Stardew Valley is hugely data-driven, and being able to leverage that tooling, not to mention solid cross-platform support, looks like a huge force multiplier.

<comment><USER20> I don't _think_ so, but it's not an area I'm always the most up to date with. I'm guessing if it existed I'd have heard of it, though.

"Amethyst" and "piston" are the two engine projects. I'm not sure if studios are using them or I'd they're building something in-house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wish nothing but the best for this guy, but I think it's kind of sick how we romanticize and valorize people who do nothing but obsessively work and neglect their relationship with their partners and magically pull off their project in the end to become rich. It's a gross fantasy. At least this doesn't have the "vindictive and abusive" genius aspect of these stories you typically hear like in the Steve Jobs archetypes or whatever. He seems like a nice person and I really like his game. I just think its incredibly sad that this is perceived to be something to aspire to.

<comment><USER22> I don't think that the developer could have possibly imagined that he would get rich. I'm sure that he was scared that he wouldn't break even with a living wage until it already in the market.

While I agree that it's uncool to ignore your partner to an abusive degree, it sounds to me like they communicated about it and she was consciously and proactively supportive. (I would support her owning a significant cut of the profits, even if they ever split up. She sounds incredible to me.)

The main reason that I hit reply, however, is that when it comes to having a passion project that consumes you, it doesn't feel like work. Some of the happiest moments of my life have been when I've been able to shut out the world and focus 100% of my energy on something I am deeply committed to. I think that it is pure, noble and for people like me, the way in which we are most fulfilled. It's not a job but a calling. I 100% get it. I also appreciate that it's not for everyone.

However, just because you don't understand it does not mean that it's somehow less than the ways you choose to spend your time. What you see as sick, I see as privileged.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I found out about this from reading Blood, Sweat and Pixels [1]. What really struck me about this whole story is the fact that his partner was able to support him for the entire duration he was working on the game (close to half a decade). That's a tough sell for any relationship, and if you ask me the real hero of this story is his partner who believed in him enough to support him all the way to the end. I would love to be in that kind of relationship.

[1] [https://kotaku.com/i-wrote-a-book-about-the-making-of- unchar...](https://kotaku.com/i-wrote-a-book-about-the-making-of- uncharted-4-star-wa-1792635169)

<comment><USER24> Well, let's be honest here; it really depends on the job she has, for example if she is an anesthesiologist is exponentially easier to support her partner than if she has a low-paying job like barista or something alike.

<comment><USER25> it's not only about the money young fella. A long and uncertain project without any income like that is a tough sell for any relationship.

<comment><USER26> You say it's not about the money, but then you mention income again. What is it about then?

<comment><USER10> >it's not _only_ about the money

<comment><USER26> Yes, I saw that. But saying something like that and then mentioning nothing but money (income) is a little confusing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I dont think it's accurate to describe Auburn Washington as "semi-rural"

<comment><USER28> Yeah, Auburn itself within the city limits is Seattle/Tacoma suburbs, so that sounded weird. There are definitely semi-rural areas with an Auburn address, east of Highway 18, and maybe that's where he lived.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is the software he is using to create pixel art?

<comment><USER19> In the photo in the article, about halfway down with the tree, it looks like Paint.net

[https://www.getpaint.net/](https://www.getpaint.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love the game and loved Harvest Moon, I thank Eric for his work and his dedication.

</comment><comment> forgot-my-pw It's pretty impressive that he worked on it alone, including art and music.

</comment><comment><USER30> Man, I really wish there were some more detail on Eric's workflow. After all, one man creating all these assets and managing all this sounds like a nightmare without some sort of organizational system

</comment><comment><USER31> my ex loved this game. i'm a sucker for gamer chicks.

</comment><comment><USER32> I know it isn't the point of the article but...damn, this guy couldn't get a job. Like the easiest thing was to spend thousands of hours developing this game? Hm, kind of sad.

<comment><USER22> I feel like you are, indeed, missing the point: this guy wasn't successful despite his passion project. He was successful because of his passion project.

For those of us who know exactly what they would do with the opportunity to spend thousands of hours on a calling, this guy is an inspiration.

<comment><USER32> It wasn't a calling, it was something he did when nothing else worked. I am sure he enjoyed it, he wouldn't have done it otherwise...but that isn't my point. My point is that it isn't inspiring...at all.

It would be interesting to know what he actually thinks but I know because I have actually been in that situation (unf, more than once). It isn't fun, it is soul-destroying to pour your being into something you love with no reward. Even if you are "successful", that initial experience of feeling trapped taints it (indeed, the whole point is that you are immune to notions of success/failure and the experience changes your notion of success...if you come into thinking about success then you will get washed out in a few months).

And he was successful despite it. He would have done okay whatever he did. It is just a little unfortunate that he had go down that path, imo.

<comment><USER22> Is it possible that we read a completely different article?

He was a huge fan of Harvest Moon and he wanted to make a spiritual successor. Paragraph 3: "I think it makes sense that I worked entirely alone," Eric says. "I wanted to do all the music, the art."

The article does talk about how he was not getting hired for the jobs he wanted, and he knew he'd have to level up his skillset. However, it's also self-evident that within a year he'd secured a publisher and taken an advance... so his job search became an educational pursuit which became an opportunity to build something that by any sane definition is a labour of love.

I'm not weirded out that you're not inspired, because it doesn't sound like you're the sort of person that would become inspired to create something like what's described. And that is fine, right?

Many of us, however, are inspired by stories like this. It's not just video games, either... but Braid comes to mind as an example of something that could never have come from Electronic Arts. It's also the only game that Roger Ebert conceded constitutes art.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry that your projects didn't work out. Arguably, if doing something you love isn't its own reward, then you might be doing the wrong thing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Some Fear a Glut in Tech 'Incubators' - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203935604577065030293530806.html <comment><USER2> From the article:

"Incubators are "no more a waste of resources than going to business school," said Paul Graham.

I laughed when I read that. Was that a joke?

Business schools are a waste for many, if not most students. However, for the right person at the right school it's a golden opportunity. I have an MBA and it was the right thing for me, but for a lot of MBA students it's just not useful. They're better served by gaining experience on the job or ad hoc training like seminars and the occasional evening class.

Comparing incubators to business schools is not very flattering to incubators. There's definitely a glut of business schools and way too many MBAs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Overall, I think incubators (tech or not) have a looooong way to go before there's truly a glut. My guess is there are for more smart people couped up in non-entrepreneurial ventures than is socially optimal.

Certainly some are higher quality than others, but I still think the incubator business model has a lot of in roads to make.

Ideally, they'd start to form in areas besides tech.

</comment><comment><USER4> We are safe for now since no incubator has _yet_ deigned to incubate incubators.

EDIT: Do you guys realize that "rebuttal" link is April Fools?

<comment><USER5> [http://vator.tv/news/2011-04-01-super-angels-create- incubato...](http://vator.tv/news/2011-04-01-super-angels-create-incubator- for-incubators)

<comment><USER5> ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's certainly not a glut of incubators when you consider geography. Not everyone is a 22-year-old with no roots and willing to move to SF or NY for 3 months.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't get all these tech bubble articles. If you could prevent a bubble by blogging about it, there would be no bubbles.

Seriously, if you are making a programmer's salary and tomorrow the bottom falls out of the jobs market and you find yourself with no savings or backup plan, you're doing it wrong (I know this because that's exactly what I did in the last bubble :).

</comment><comment><USER8> Is it me or have there been at least three relatively fact-free, anecdote- based articles recently (2 WSJ, 1 NYT IIRC) talking about the angel/startup bubble and generally trying to spread FUD about silicon valley? Where is this coming from?

<comment><USER9> Part of it is pattern-matching. Lots of people getting excited about startups reminds journalists and VCs of the late 1990s, therefore it's a bubble.

I think people/organizations that have something to lose are also more likely to criticize. Levchin complains about "too much competition for talent" -- it would be a lot easier and cheaper if developers worked for him instead of striking out on their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> i like the notion of 'increasing risk'. maybe this would lead to less fast websites prototypes, and to more projects that are not just small innovative features, but projects that are making some big innovative things (like the one i used to have :)</comment>


Five Founders (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://paulgraham.com/5founders.html <comment><AUTHOR> Anecdote: After the Friendfeed acquisition the Facebook "platform" turned from a shaky API and a wild-west wiki to a real developer platform with client libraries and documentation.

Not certain if the Friendfeed people were behind this shift but it definitely looked like it from the outside.</comment>


Weekly Machine Learning Toolset and Library Roundup – Nov. 30, 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.pocketcluster.io/2017/11/30/weekly-machine-learning-opensource-roundup-nov-30-2017/ <comment><USER2> Very cool, but what is this Pocket Cluster? Part of DeepMind? Part of Google? Part of GitHub?</comment>


A $4.8M model airport with computer controlled vehicles - <AUTHOR> http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/man-builds-worlds-largest-model-airport-the-knuffingen/story-e6frfq80-1226050348557

<comment><USER2> "Man builds" is not quite correct. The airport is part of the largest model railway in the world [1]. The thing is build by a rather large team with ten years worth of experience in building high-end models.

If you ever come to northern Germany, I absolutely recommend a visit!

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniatur_Wunderland>

<comment><USER3> Also check there Youtube channel. Here a nice movie explaining the takeoff/landing system: [http://www.youtube.com/user/MiWuLaTV#p/a/5F525544A3296EEB/0/...](http://www.youtube.com/user/MiWuLaTV#p/a/5F525544A3296EEB/0/bUqMbtMcECE) (in German)

 _edit_ Wow, I did not realize the airplanes are not connected to the system. They can all run "free".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Each passenger is only allowed to carry liquids in containers no larger than 100 picolitres.

<comment><USER5> +5 Funny

<comment><USER5> Slashdot haters burn my karma.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Correction: not built by a single man at all. Built by a team of ~200, as a single part of a 20-year project. Here are the facts:

[http://www.miniatur- wunderland.com/exhibit/wunderland/wunder...](http://www.miniatur- wunderland.com/exhibit/wunderland/wunderland-facts/)

<comment><USER7> Labour, as you point out, but also materials and tools, none of which I'd expect comes particularly cheap in the quality needed for that level of detail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very interesting. There are more videos/details of it here:

[http://www.miniatur- wunderland.com/exhibit/video/section/air...](http://www.miniatur- wunderland.com/exhibit/video/section/airport/) and <http://www.youtube.com/user/MiWuLaTV>

Their YouTube channel has a lot of videos called "Gerrit's Diary" (the main guy building it), and he goes into some detail about the different parts as they are building it (it is in German, with English subtitles). I haven't found anything specifically about the programming, but I would love to know some more about what went into that.

<comment><USER9> I have just browsed through the blog of the project manager at <http://tagebuch.miniatur-wunderland.de> (it's in German). Until now the only thing I could find regarding the programming are the following numbers[1]:

The control software has 145.000 lines of code[I guess for the whole model, not just the airport]

Just the airport control software has 70,000 lines of code.

He has added 200,000 numbers just for the configuration.

[1] [http://tagebuch.miniatur-wunderland.de/eintrag/aus-dem- leben...](http://tagebuch.miniatur-wunderland.de/eintrag/aus-dem-leben-eines- programmierers/) (German)

[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftagebuch.miniatur- wunderland.de%2Feintrag%2Faus-dem-leben-eines-programmierers%2F) (English with Google translate)

<comment><USER10> When I remember correctly Gerrit mentioned that his homebrewn code is mostly written in VisualBasic. As far as I know, he studied business informatics.

However, they are also using other software like <http://www.railware.com>. I visited the Miniaturwunderland this year and it was quite fun to watch the operator team writing down RailWare bugs into their own excel sheets.

The Miniaturwunderland model railroad is definitely worth a visit for every programmer! Then you can imagine how difficult it is to change things in large complex systems without breaking something.

<comment><USER11> No, it's Delphi (of course).

Link: [http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/anlage/video/miwula- tv/fil...](http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/anlage/video/miwula- tv/film/artikel/gerrits-tagebuch-vol-13-hinter-den-technischen-kulissen/) (1:50 h, german)

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the info. Watching through the Gerrit's Diary videos is fun. The amount of detail they put into this is astonishing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is so very German.

Can anyone tell how the take-off/landing is handled? It appears that the planes ride on little support struts, but do the struts auto engage/disengage once landing is complete/about to begin? Most of the taxiing appears to be done sans-struts. Also curious what happens to the planes onces they take off...

<comment><USER13> The youtube video above explains that (again in German). The start/landing system with two 'poles' was designed over a long time to allow realistic angles of the plane (i.e. nose up during descend/landing).

Are those things disconnected later? I'm pretty sure, yes. The actual mechanism wasn't shown in the videos I've seen, but I expect those planes to be able to taxi to the runways, connect and lift off.

After take off the planes are brought behind the scenery in a special area that allows to store/move/hide the planes. The video even says that it should be possible to change the direction of the start/landing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> As an autonomous vehicle enthusiast I was bewildered by the "carsystem" with no other explanation.

Their website explains that they use an expanded version of the "Faller-Car- System". After doing a little research I found that a magnet attached to the front tires follows a metal wire embedded in the roadway similar to the way a smart road works.

In one system I found, a magnetic reed switch is used to stop (and start) vehicles when they pass over electromagnets. Electromagnets in the road are also used to divert the steering when a choice between 2 wires to follow is available.

Miniatur Wunderland has expanded on this system considerably with a central computer communicating with an on-board controller in each vehicle to control speed, lights, and sounds. I couldn't find any information about if or how the cars determine or communicate their true position. My guess is that they estimate based on the speed and movement commands they send.

They do have a couple of systems for computer controlling boats that they are working on that uses ultrasonic or infared signals to determine boat position to under 1mm.

It's quite interesting to me that they have been able to make cars and boats act and be controlled more like trains.

</comment><comment><USER15> Really cool!

But I don't "get" projects like this. Why spend seven years and $4.8m? Are there really that many people willing to pay to see this that they can recoup the investment? Are there any other side benefits? (i.e. finding logistical deficiencies in the airline industry)

Oh what I could do with $4.8m and seven years...

<comment><USER16> There are enough people who are willing to stand in a queue for two hours to see it: [http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/visit/waiting- time/histor...](http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/visit/waiting- time/historical-waiting/?monat=04&jahr=2011)

(And for those who like it recursive: they have a model of the model railroad as part of the model railroad [http://www.miniatur- wunderland.com/fileadmin/media/foto-gale...](http://www.miniatur- wunderland.com/fileadmin/media/foto-galerie/hamburg/hamburg-wunderland- einblick.jpg) complete with the queue [http://www.miniatur- wunderland.com/fileadmin/media/foto-gale...](http://www.miniatur- wunderland.com/fileadmin/media/foto-galerie/hamburg/hamburg-warteschlange- kran.jpg) )

<comment><USER17> <http://xkcd.com/878/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The funny thing is that, while my first reaction was "that's really cool", my immediate next thought was that it would have been much cooler using augmented reality instead of figurines and models. I wonder how much longer there is going to be demand for physical proofs of concept like these.

</comment><comment><USER19> Watch this video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_oDdGmKyA&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_oDdGmKyA&feature=player_embedded).

The whole thing is just amazing. Checkout 3:30 in, the computer control station is just rad.

</comment><comment><USER20> Can the planes that 'fly' in to land can detach from the support rod and taxi through the airport? Hard to tell from the video...

<comment><USER21> It seems that way, especially since the alternative would just be a ton of touch-and-go landings.

<comment><USER22> Yep, they use magnets on the airplaines. The planes are powered by batteries and guided by other magnets (watch the nose wheel with his little skid). They even have some elevators behind the scene to sort and distribute the planes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's pretty cool!

</comment><comment><USER24> Miniature company with team of ~200 builds airport model... how is this hacker news related?

<comment><USER16> The hacker movement grew out of the MIT model railroad club, so model railroads are by definition on topic :-)

<comment><USER24> <http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html> : ("A crap link is one that's only superficially interesting. Stories on HN don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested in hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting.")</comment></comment></comment>


Mass-Produced Electric Lada from 30 Years Ago - <AUTHOR> http://englishrussia.com/2018/09/04/soviet-tesla-electric-lada-from-30-years-ago-that-was-mass-produced/ <comment><USER2> Americans love to take the piss of of the old soviet lada, but as an automotive mechanic I think theyre another example of how the soviets really were ahead of their time.

In 2018 most americans just commute in their cars. performance isnt a real concern, but gas mileage and longevity are. most modern compact cars are hardly capable of doing more than merging onto the interstate. And forget about trying to repair them yourself (the Honda Fit requires you to drop the engine to service the plastic fuel filter.)

but the lada could be serviced with a set of rented hand tools and in most cases had ample ground clearance to work without stands. you could rebuild the electric starter with a spool of wire and a few parts from an electronics store. it was never going to beat an american muscle car in the quarter mile, but the lada 1200 made 23 miles per gallon. the 1972 chevy nova of the same era? 14 miles per gallon.

<comment><USER3> It's great to romanticize them, but this really was a low quality product that constantly broke down. Make no mistake, this was not a good product, even if it was cheap to repair.

<comment><USER4> I wonder if you preserved the design, had higher tolerance parts, and better QA during production, would you then have a competitive product?

<comment><USER5> No, because of bad passive safety in Ladas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-dub "The Ni-Zn batteries were a heavy load – over 380kg of weight. The engine had 25 kWt (35 hp) which could get the car up to 90 km/h."

a car that weighs nearly 1000 pounds with an engine that was about as powerful as a riding lawnmower.

reminds me of the old joke...

"what do you call a lada on top of a hill?"

"a miracle."

<comment><USER6> > reminds me of the old joke...

Despite the jokes, the 80s ladas weren't so bad.

My dad had a second-hand one in the 90s (almost certainly from mid 80s) and it was a pretty solid car. There was a degree of simplicity to the maintenance that was uncharacteristic of other cars at the time. I don't recall it needing any major work doing to it at any point.

It also had windscreen wipers on the headlights which I recall a strange fascination with because at night the blades would cast moving shadows across the road.

When he sold it, it was snapped up quick for the Russian market.

However, the power of the electric lada in the article does sound more worthy of the old jokes.

It still seems pretty ambitious for the day and certainly surpasses my expectations on range.

<comment><USER7> As others have said, must be an exception!

My dad got my mum a Lada in the late 80's as it seemed a good deal ... that thing was horrendous and always breaking down.

Another joke from that time "Why do Lada's have heated rear windscreens? To keep your hands warm while you're pushing them"

<comment><USER6> I never knew if the jokes were just cold war propaganda or entrenched in some kind of reality. The design of the Lada definitely went back some way. But for his needs it wasn't a bad car.

My dad tinkered with cars and did everything himself. Maybe from a consumer point of view the car wasn't great, but then judging by the comprehensiveness of the toolkit that came with the car it perhaps wasn't aimed at the average consumer.

I have since heard from other sources that the electrics could vary between perfect and terrible in Ladas, and that the bodies could be prone to rust. But both things were not uncommon with more mainstream cars of the time. I think the main problem my dad had was getting hold of parts in the UK.

> Another joke from that time "Why do Lada's have heated rear windscreens? To > keep your hands warm while you're pushing them"

I remember many of those jokes being interchangeable with Lada and Skoda. Incidentally, my dad's next car was a Skoda Favorit. I'm not sure the jokes were really relevant there.

It is quite interesting how Skoda now enjoys one of the better reputations of brands under the VW group.

<comment><USER8> Don't know but wouldn't all cars be prone to rust in Russian winter and breakdowns on your awful roads? :)

Came w toolkit, sounds like a gamer's overclocking PC!

<comment><USER9> It does sound a bit strange when I hear people comparing the reliability of cars driven in conditions that are literally and figuratively worlds apart. And I'm thinking of climate, quality of roads, availability of professional repair, etc.

Since very few Ladas were ever driven in California, and very few Chevys in Russia it's hard to be fair. They are both the products of local conditions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > So in the years 1980-81, the first serial Soviet electric car was produced – > over fifty cars were made in that first production run.

Does 50 cars produced over a 2 year period really qualify as "mass-produced"? When Tesla makes a few thousand Model 3 cars in a single week, analysts complain it's not enough.

<comment><USER11> Seems weird to me as well, but at the same time, there probably wasn't a bigger market at that time for that vehicle than what they made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Back in the old days my dad built his Lada himself.

We could not really afford a new one, so he bought and collected parts including the chassis. Then, I think it took half an year or so between his job to assemble it together. With lots of help of course, from my uncle and several books describing the technical details. As a kid, I had minor contributions as well and learned a thing or two about cars in the process.

How reliable was the car? Pretty reliable. He drove it for half a decade, at least. At its end, we used the car mainly for pulling a trailer with construction work materials for several years then sold it for scrap.

Yeah, you could build a Lada yourself, if you really wanted to.

</comment><comment><USER13> There was a time back in the late 70's and early 80's when the USSR bought New Zealand dairy and agricultural produce but couldn't pay the bill. So they paid with Ladas instead.

They were terrible, terrible cars. Even worse than the rear-engined Skodas.

<comment><USER8> Odd fact: Skoda is owned by VW now

<comment><USER14> Another odd fact: Skoda is the 5th oldest car manufacturing company in the world (after Daimler, Opel, Peugeot and Tatra - another Czech company).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> But Porsche was even more ahead of it's time with the first hybrid car in 1900:

"The Lohner-Porsche's design was studied by Boeing and NASA to create the Apollo program's Lunar Roving Vehicle. Many of its design principles were mirrored in the Rover's design."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner- Porsche](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche)</comment>


Making a Collaborative Piano Using Functional Reactive Programming - <AUTHOR> http://open.bekk.no/making-a-collaborative-piano-using-functional-reactive-programming-frp

<comment><USER2> After some feedback the example (the piano implementation) is updated to include black keys.</comment>


Y Combinator News - <AUTHOR> https://push.cx/2015/y-combinator-news

<comment><USER2> It could be named "Rockstar ninja coder news".

Or maybe the author could just recognise that a brand's name doesn't often change.

<comment><USER3> Isn't the author's point that 'Y Combinator' is the brand, and 'Hacker' is just (edit: highly effective!) marketing?

In fact, it used to be called 'Startup News'!

<comment><USER2> I would argue that the vast majority of people on here have very little interest in YC. I'm here for the interesting content and people.

Therefore there are two brands (in my humble opinion).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> pg was part of the east coast MIT/Lisp hacker culture and his use of the term predates YC by many years. That's why HN is called what it is. I don't see why one would begrudge this. Indeed, YC itself started as a hack, so it would be truer to say that the H led to the Y than vice versa.

It's true that the word "hacker" has morphed and become diluted, but that's what happens when subcultures go mainstream, and words are always changing anyhow. I don't like it either, but it happens.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure what the point is. That YC continues to use the word "hacker" to selfishly attract the kind of people who aim for billion-dollar exits instead of moderate returns? The author might be interested to know pg has written an essay on this.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/swan.html)

Anyway, if I had to wager a guess, I'd go with the Occam's-razor explanation that YC uses the word hacker because its founders _identify as hackers_ in the original sense of the word. In fact, that hackers are better at starting breakout companies practically seems to be YC's thesis.

<comment><USER6> I think his point is that this website (or specifically, its owners) is more aligned with mainstream corporate/VC culture than what traditionally was considered hacker culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This site used to be called Startup News. Using a name that is different from the URL means you can rename it without needing to change the web address.</comment>


Ask HN: I want to create a mobile web app with Django. Where to begin? - <AUTHOR>

Hailing all Python experts! What is the correct path to go if I want to write a simple web app in Django. I want to have a login and when I login, just display some simple data.
Right now I'm reading up on Django, what else should I read and familiarize myself with?
As a beginner it's tough sorting through all the data on Google and finding out what is write/wrong and wasting hours experimenting. <comment> antonio-R Well beside reading de doc. and start by creating the "hello world" django app, you should take a look at these django packages: [https://www.djangopackages.com/grids/g/mobile/](https://www.djangopackages.com/grids/g/mobile/)

then save the android developers site and read the design patterns section: [http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/index.html](http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/index.html)

and finally follow this tutorial to jump start your mobile app: [http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/build-a-mobile-and- des...](http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/build-a-mobile-and-desktop- friendly-application-django-15-minutes)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thank you very much, bookmarked these resources!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> There's two approaches here:

1) Traditional, have Django serve mobile optimized HTML via it's templates.

2) Use django to create an API, there's several tools to help with this, like piston, django-rest-framework, and tastypie.

</comment><comment><USER3> A project that I am currently working on uses a Django Piston API and a javascript framework on the client.

Piston: [https://bitbucket.org/jespern/django- piston/wiki/Home](https://bitbucket.org/jespern/django-piston/wiki/Home)</comment>


Statement by FTC Regarding Reported Concerns about Facebook Privacy Practices - <AUTHOR> https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2018/03/statement-acting-director-ftcs-bureau-consumer-protection <comment><USER2> >Foremost among these tools is enforcement action against companies that fail to honor their privacy promises

This is the crux of the issue. The problem is that when Facebook asks for "location information", the consequences of this are not being conveyed to the user. The user might think, "ah they want my location for the weather recommendations and event suggestions in my neighbourhood". They do not realise how something so "innocuous" as location information could be weaponised against them.

I used location data as an example because you could infer almost everything about a person just from that. You could know their social circle, their approximate tax bracket, which banks they use, who is their lawyer, their accountant and their wealth manager, their familiar situation, how healthy they eat, how healthy they are, whether they are chronically ill, and what type of chronic diseases they might have, what activities they engage in, what are their political leanings, I could go on, I do not think this is anywhere near an exhaustive list...

The user does not know that Facebook it going to tip off the insurance provider about the user's unhealthy eating habits or his chronic medical condition. Or maybe tip off his bank that he has substantial wealth elsewhere.

<comment><USER3> If I had a nickel for every time someone called me paranoid or a conspiracy theorist for mentioning this before last week, I'd have a ton of nickels.

I should feel better now that people of aware of the nefariousness of this type of data collection, but I feel worse. The general public is being fed this as "Russia" and "Trump", and not getting the real, horrifying, surveillance state truth of what's going on.

I'm less worried that the Trump campaign used CA _(and that the Clinton campaign used CTR)_ , than I am by Obama saying "it's just metadata".

<comment><USER4> But... don't you remember how _cool_ Obama was? He loved his blackberry!

<comment><USER5> Obama...that was the president who authorized the FBI to infiltrate the Occupy Wallstreet movement and paint the protesters as rapists and weirdos, right? Democrats who think highly of him are no better than Republicans who think highly of Reagan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Remember the delete Uber campaign, the Equifax breach, the WFC accounts, the Bank of America suits, the Intel chip vulnerability? The market doesn't.

The market has a short memory, and FB is not going anywhere. However, there may be some welcomed changes in data abuse.

With that said, I think the stock is a bargain today.

<comment><USER7> Remember Digg? Unlike the companies you listed, FB is user-facing - just like Digg.

If users happen to decide that a company is not "cool" anymore or dispase its public figure(Zuckerberg), it may actually go away.

Remember IE(stands for Internet Explorer)? Using Firefox and later Chrome became a crusade and the almighty brand of the richest person in the world that holds the monopoly on computers platforms bled to death.

<comment><USER8> Digg and IE "died" because there was a real practical incentive to move towards alternatives. This Facebook thing is mostly ideological at the core, in terms of day-to-day user experience it's no better or worse than it was a month ago. Digg also never was more than a small speck of dust compared to Facebook, even at the apex of its popularity. Facebook's huge network effect is hard to overcome.

If you want Facebook to die you have to come up with an alternative with improved usability to convince people to switch over. Now you have do that with the added handicap of "do no evil" (so less money from targeted advertising etc...) while fighting to gain market share against some of the biggest companies in the world. My guess is that if you manage to do all of that you'll just end up bought by Facebook anyway.

<comment><USER9> > My guess is that if you manage to do all of that you'll just end up bought > by Facebook anyway.

Of course.. unfortunately you can't say no when some behemoth wants to buy you. /s

<comment><USER10> It's indeed a rare breed that can, especially when the checks come with nine zeros.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> And the ironic cherry on top is the line right under the report "Like the FTC on Facebook." It this a farce?

<comment><USER12> How exactly is that irony?

<comment><USER13> Not ironic in the classic sense but it is a humorous coincidence, and it says a lot about Facebook's ubiquity.

<comment><USER14> Ironic in the Alanis Morisette sense :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How were any of you damaged by Facebook ads, exactly? Why the outrage now and not before, when Obama (and everyone else) used targeted advertising?

This whole outrage over privacy is disingenuous. It's painfully obvious the outrage is about Donald Trump being elected president, not personal information used to target ads.

<comment><USER16> This argument is disingenuous, and not really more than a projected opinion. Not everyone is this tribal, and people are allowed to be angry when they see the manifest implications of surveillance capitalism without being partisans.

<comment><USER17> History is being written right now and people are rightly seeing a case of selective memory by the media.

Most people agree that social media surveillance is bad. The majority of the HN comments that bring up Obama 2008/2012 are not trying to justify the CA/Facebook incident, rather they're pointing out a hypocritical double- standard.

I want the surveillance to stop _and_ the record to be set straight. We're dangerously close to public sentiment solidifying around the idea that the CA/Facebook incident was unprecedented and arguably stole an election in 2016. I don't think the truth supports that at all and am trying to use comments like this to keep such false narratives out of textbooks 10 years from now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If Zuckerberg has any game at all, he will welcome this investigation, 'educate' the regulators, and then build a regulatory moat around Facebook that no one can breach.

The big four banks did this after 2009, and they are even more entrenched and systematically important than they were before. Expect Facebook to borrow liberally from their playbook.

<comment><USER19> Can you elaborate on exactly how "big four banks" built a regulatory moat that no one can breach?

<comment><USER20> The regulatory costs of running a bank are much higher now than before the financial crisis. This means that the chance of an upstart challenging the big players has actually gone down, even though some of the regulation was meant to address concerns of "too big to fail".

<comment><USER21> Which is the Trump administration is trying to change that to give smaller regional banks a fighting chance. It's weird tat people are against this.

<comment><USER10> I agree. The tribalism in the current political climate of the US is really damaging on all sides. Trump has done more than a handful of good things and a lot of my friends/family don't want to hear it. Just like my Dad (Fox News watcher, Limbaugh fan, etc...) almost foams at the mouth when you mention Obama/Clinton; it's crazy. He's been conditioned. It reminds of the effects of the two minutes hate from 1984[0]. Too many citizens are completely disengaged from the political process and too many of those that are have bought into these cults of personality.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Agree with those who says it will not effect Fb much and it's incomparable with other past apps/social media platforms. The reason is that unlike others Facebook exploited us, humans in such a way with help of technology and psychology that there is almost no friction to get into Facebook world. On top of that the content people see on their feeds make them glued all the time. I have not been using Facebook for weeks and since then the news broke of privacy and stalking I shared multiple times with friends and family but no one gives a damn about privacy(unless one suffers him/herself) so they are happy to have some _happy moments_ reading religious, political posts or joke. So, #deletefacebook campaign might work among some tech elites but not among commons, specially among villagers in long distant areas of Pakistan who use Facebook to interact with family members in cities.

<comment><USER22> Not sure why was I down voted? A little explanation could help.

<comment><USER23> I don't know either, but it's against the HN posting guidelines to inquire. It's hard to know where sentiment comes from, I'd recommend not dwelling on it too long. Just keep writing comments you believe in.

<comment><USER24> The problem is with no feedback, it can be hard to adjust in the right direction.

And I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think downvotes on this platform have consequences beyond just hiding one comment.

I've noticed ordering anomalies here where people who posted newer comments and had > 0 points were ranked below people who posted older comments and had <= 0 points. There was some intrinsic ranking going on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There are a number of ways of paying for a social network. Among them:

\- Ads

\- Subscriptions

\- Loss leader for another product

\- Microtransactions

Facebook does ads.

Subscriptions hurt network effects.

Google+ ran into a brick wall of network effects.

Nobody uses Flattr, and it's hard to imagine people paying a buck for video filters or other premium features.

It'd be great to solve the problem without building another Facebook, but my best guess is that if Facebook goes down someone else builds another system basically identical to Facebook and we all have this conversation again 10 years in the future.

<comment><USER26> There is an interesting anthropological conversation in here: some segment of the population might be willing to pay for services that protect their privacy, but due to network effects, an integrated society will tend towards the lowest common "customer profile" denominator.

Hmm. Maybe that's not right. Maybe the lowest quality content will be on the most common denominator platform - maybe that's what we're seeing. And maybe that's why I've effectively left Facebook - the folks I want to share and connect with aren't there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I really hope that eventually they will get thrown out of the European market, GDPR is a start. I think their business model has no place in a free and open society.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm really amazed that all of this is coming to light less than 2 months before the GDPR comes into effect. I would've thought that companies, especially social media companies, would be trying to keep their heads down and avoid drawing attention from the EU on Day 1.

Everything that Facebook is saying to its American audience, it's also saying to the European GDPR regulators.

They need to walk a very fine line here and right now I don't think they're doing a particularly good job of it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think people are forgetting how much easier it is to scale and build a network these days. The moat is the network for facebook but it can be replaced in a relatively short period of time if the right competition enters the market. Facebook has invested a lot of technology toward selling ads and the core product for the users has not changed much (for the better) in the past decade. Classic monopolistic behavior.

<comment><USER30> Sure, the technical barrier isn't that high anymore. Social and economic barriers though...

By subsidising otherwise prohibitively expensive mobile data connections for Facebook traffic only, Facebook has become _the internet_ in many countries.

Facebook have their app preinstalled by pretty much every Android vendor. As a system app that you can't remove.

Other services require you to have a Facebook account to login, there aren't many services that devs trust for this.

Competing with something this deeply entrenched would be difficult, and doing that with ethical limitations that they don't have is damn near impossible.

<comment><USER31> > By subsidising otherwise prohibitively expensive mobile data connections for > Facebook traffic only, Facebook has become the internet in many countries.

I like to see how much revenue Facebook gets from those countries vs. the US and Western Europe.

> Competing with something this deeply entrenched would be difficult

I don't think anything you listed makes FB so entrenched that's it's invulnerable. Facebook's big strengths are network effects and its pile of cash, but its weakness is that it's a leisure item in a somewhat trend-driven market. All the money in the world can't keep something fashionable forever.

<comment><USER30> > I like to see how much revenue Facebook gets from those countries vs. the US > and Western Europe.

That's not even the point, even if they're loosing money at the moment it's almost certainly worth it to capture those new users.

> All the money in the world can't keep something fashionable forever.

Facebook isn't fashionable or trendy, myspace et al took that angle which is why they're gone now, and also that's missing the point again.

Facebook is a social utility that a crapload of people can't live without. I have friends who I can't even contact without using facebook/messenger/whatsapp, and this is in a country where mobile data is cheap and SMS/phone calls are basically free. Go to a place where facebook- subsidised connections are the only option that people can actually afford and your only alternative is basically social suicide.

I don't think many people truly grasp the scale and pervasiveness of Facebook and how there just isn't anything that is even remotely close to competing.

<comment><USER31> > That's not even the point, even if they're loosing money at the moment it's > almost certainly worth it to capture those new users.

> Go to a place where facebook-subsidised connections are the only option that > people can actually afford and your only alternative is basically social > suicide.

It's relevant because a new competitor can target the more valuable developed- country users. FB being so dominant that it's "the internet" in some undeveloped countries is _not_ a barrier to that.

> Facebook is a social utility that a crapload of people can't live without.

That's not true. There are very few people who can legally use FB who were born after it was created. There are also a crapload of people who are totally off it who get along fine.

> I have friends who I can't even contact without using > facebook/messenger/whatsapp

I do to, but they're not people who I actually want or need to contact regularly.

Also, I'm pretty sure if you can contact someone on Whatsapp you can contact them without it. It's keyed on phone numbers, so you could always go back to texting.

> don't think many people truly grasp the scale and pervasiveness of Facebook > and how there just isn't anything that is even remotely close to competing.

I don't agree you can infer longevity from present ubiquity. I don't think the social barriers that are protecting Facebook are as high as you think they are. To reiterate my point...

>> I don't think anything you listed makes FB so entrenched that's it's invulnerable. Facebook's big strengths are network effects and its pile of cash, but its weakness is that it's a leisure item in a somewhat trend-driven market. All the money in the world can't keep something fashionable forever.

Facebook can't demand user-exclusivity in developed markets, so its network effect strengths are vulnerable to attack. If it can't continually acquire the competitors that threaten to replace it, it will wither and die as its core app becomes unfashionable and superseded by shinier messaging and social broadcast platforms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > Like the FTC on Facebook (link is external)

Really got me there, lol.

</comment><comment><USER33> I find it pretty hilarious that they're also promoting their Facebook page at the bottom... "Like the FTC on Facebook"

</comment><comment><USER34> > [FTC] has an open non-public investigation into these practices

Not familiar with _open non-public_ legalese but it sounds like an oxymoron.

<comment><USER35> Open - the status of the case is "open", meaning it is under active investigation.

Non-public - you already know this :)

<comment><USER34> Gotcha, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm just seeing blank page right now.

</comment><comment><USER37> Shares off 5% today and still falling. Its really dragging down FNGU as well...

</comment><comment><USER38> > like FTC on Facebook

the irony

</comment><comment><USER39> This article is an invoice to FB of approximately: ~$1e+10 ... $1e+11</comment>