How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-chinese-officials-hijacked-my-company-11596233617 <comment><USER2> The scale of their IP theft is incredible.

The CFO survey said it is happening to 1 in 5 US corporations, which is incredible if you think about it - but the trouble is the scale is larger than that, when you include what they steal via surveillance too.

I can't see an answer outside of decoupling, seeing as they're set on their path and proud of it.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say- china-s...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-stole- their-ip-within-the-last-year-cnbc.html)

<comment><USER3> >I can't see an answer outside of decoupling

Maybe stop relying on IP as your business strategy ? Always be innovating so that you always be one step ahead those who copying.

<comment><USER2> How do you out-innovate a country which has less regulation, more intrusive surveillance, more factories ready to churn out whatever you invent, more workers (and Uighur slaves) ready to do the labour for less, and no qualms about stealing anything and everything you come up with and copying it at a scale you can't possibly match?

<comment><USER4> Perhaps we could stop dismantling the domestic economy by implementing policies that reward domestic investment? Huge swaths [0] of the country are losing their livelihoods due to offshoring and monopolistic practices.

[0] [https://policybynumbers.com/economic-stagnation-and- electora...](https://policybynumbers.com/economic-stagnation-and-electoral- discontent-in-the-rust-belt)

<comment><USER5> there are hard problems in the world. we need rational national strategy to give ourselves a chance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article gives several possible ways to improve the situation. However, one critical way is missing imho: China forces foreign investment to always come in the form of a joint venture with a Chinese company. This practice needs to be forbidden or heavily penalized in all future trade agreements and similar international contracts.

<comment><USER7> Or reciprocated.

Chinese citizens have invested a ton in US businesses, which is sort of okay. They also bought a ton of land in the US, which led to skyrocketing housing prices, and in the long term, if it continues unabated, will lead to the US paying tribute to China in the form of rents on US land. There is no upside to this. We got cheap Chinese plastic trinkets. They got our real estate. Didn't we do this to the indigenous people here once ourselves?

To be clear: I'm not opposed to being able to buy foreign land per se, but I am opposed to how one-sided this is. For the most part, US entities can't really own real estate in China (and even with Chinese entities, it's complex, but that's another story).

<comment><USER2> Here in Australia, it's a giant issue too. There are plenty of houses which are Chinese-owned but unoccupied. They are effectively "banks" for storing cash. The scale is shocking, our "foreign ownership" figures for real estate are entirely skewed to this one country.

<comment><USER8> I believe Switzerland has a relatively elegant solution for this: You get taxed on the expected rental income if the house is empty unless you can prove that you _couldn 't_ rent it out.

<comment><USER9> Same here in Vancouver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It seems he fell into a classic trap, the Chinese partner never intended to make cars, as the only product they ever produced is a Smart-like "mini-four- wheel-car", which was itself stolen from an HK student design.

So the plan is quite apparent, the Chinese partner just wanted his reputation and brand recognition, in exchange for promised access to the China market, to leverage huge land quota (state controlled lucrative resource, highly coveted) and bank/government loans. It never planed to make any real cars, it's just a capital play to game and profit off of the system, like pennies for grands.

<comment><USER11> Relevant news coverage in Chinese: [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2020-08-06/doc- iivhuipn7067803.shtml)

<comment><USER12> Thank you, this was an excellent read for myself, an English-speaking American. It's interesting how much of a big story this is locally for that city.

Are Chinese news stories often this long and detailed?

Is it extra newsworthy because Saleen / "Sailin" vehicle manufacturing was part of that province's five year plan? Or would this have gotten the same coverage regardless?

<comment><USER13> The story enough fishy to look like a scam even by Chinese standards.

1\. Doing business in China? Do it without govt. involvement. The less you see those guys the better.

2\. Never do any joint ventures. Never deal with stocks, and public companies.

3\. See a well wisher popping up on your doorstep with a business proposal? Turn the guy around, he is a scam.

4\. Don't be public about your business, be as obscure as possible. Operate on online platforms. Have disposable shell company structures.

5\. Don't ever get sued, and this is why you keep shell companies. Chinese legal system is almost as "sticky" as American one, if not more. Once the legal "casus belli" is established, and the court takes on the case, the plaintiff can keep suing you for all eternity.

<comment><USER10> I didn't read the article until now, it reads exactly like what I said, a capital play.

Yet shocking still, it mentions Youth Motors/Qingnian Automobile/青年汽车 as Saleen's neighbor and former plant owner, my god, this is beyond stupid.

Youth Motors made the news last years after its "tech breakthrough of cars powered by water", which in reality is just ineffcient water-to-hygrogen onboard, it became a national joke, it also received huge amounts of government investment and apprently still doing fine right now.

This is the result of local governments not having to pay their debts, it's a feast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Honestly I don't have much problem with protectionism. Flagrant theft is no good, but when the companies enter in the domestic partnership the IP transfer is rather more de jure. And if China didn't take any IP they would continue to be massively under-developed and just a source of cheap labor, be cause there's no way in hell US companies would have willingly fostered higher skills, higher pay there.

Let's face it, major US companies that outsource to China are doing _fine_ , at least compared to workers, and we shouldn't start fucking WW III to raise their profits further.

What's far more concerning to me is what is described in [https://phenomenalworld.org/reviews/trade- wars](https://phenomenalworld.org/reviews/trade-wars), the general race-to- the-bottom export dynamics where every country surpresses wages to try to stay competitive, and via the paradox of thrift not enough consumption has been afforded. This will ruin us. And we see the race to the bottom politically too, which follows.

That book says bilateral tarries are a farce because commerce can route around them. As a programmer that makes....goddamn sense. They instead recommend general capital controls, which cannot be routed around. That also makes sense.

How about we fix our rotten economy, reinvigorate society, and win a cultural war rather than loose a real one?

<comment><USER15> > And if China didn't take any IP they would continue to be massively under- > developed and just a source of cheap labor, be cause there's no way in hell > US companies would have willingly fostered higher skills, higher pay there.

We sell the training for those skills to anyone willing to pay as part of a huge education industry. You can just buy the textbooks on amazon or get many of them along with any other materials for free.

Smaller countries in the west who couldn't possibly stand up the the big "bully" economies, and less developed regions like the US south, all have developed right up the cutting-edge with everyone else. They became developed by simply playing the game according to the rules. The real problem with developing countries is the ability tofollow those rules. The culture isn't fully-formed yet and some people are unclear on the line between stealing/scamming versus legitimate business. That doesn't mean stealing and scamming are a necessary part of development. It's the corruption that holds it back. Economic growth is based on people taking risks and making deals, which needs security and trust between them.

<comment><USER14> > We sell the training for those skills to anyone willing to pay as part of a > huge education industry. You can just buy the textbooks on amazon or get > many of them along with any other materials for free.

Education is necessary but not sufficiency, because the manufacturing secrets are sometimes intentionally secret, and sometimes simply the result of a process that isn't reproducible.

If you want a programming analogy, imagine if China had all the source code but no binaries. But worse, because there aren't codified programming languages to describe arbitrary industrial processes.

> Smaller countries in the west who couldn't possibly stand up the the big > "bully" economies, and less developed regions like the US south, all have > developed right up the cutting-edge with everyone else.

Do you know of any country (excluding tiny ones like Singapore) that became advanced without some sort of IP theft?

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

To be clear I am not arguing that the US + China relationship has been good or moral or whatever other positive quality. The US should have instead had better foreign aid policies to help countries develop---none of that IMF liberalization bullshit, but actual useful stuff like:

1\. You can tariff us and we won't retaliate

2\. We invest in your physical infrastructure

3\. We give you IP and shit so your industry can ween itself

However, this very sweet deal comes with commensurately strict conditions:

1\. Democracy

2\. Unionizaiton

3\. Gini coefficient maximum

4\. Wage floor

5\. Worker governance requirements.

It's really depressing that US foreign policy has been a objectiveless fucking joke entirely captured by the nefarious interests of corporations and bored rich people.

<comment><USER15> Secrets now? How did anyone ever develop in the first place if secrets were a dead end? Anyway, even if you saddle them with a presumption of stupidity, they can still do the stuff that isn't secret. You can make money on commodities and low quality products in a developing country with low costs. Whereas people in developed countries need to chase after the bleeding edge because they can't survive without the higher margins there.

Why are you discounting very small countries exactly?

No one would take your deal because the government is the problem holding countries back in the first place. China is an ancient civilization, not some new child that was just born and needs to grow up yet. This analogy is overly reductionist. Things that work in silicon valley right now also work everywhere else in the world. It is not magic ground. And I'm no fan of IP, but the system using it is clearly able to work here.

<comment><USER14> > You can make money on commodities and low quality products in a developing > country with low costs.

The factory owner can make a lot of money, but without advancing technology there is no way to raise the standard of living. The PRC's hold on power is absolutely predicated on raising the standard of living.

> Why are you discounting very small countries exactly?

At least in Singapore's case, being a strategically located trade intermediary stopped a lot. But that only works when huge fraction of ones country is so strategically located; this is impossible with a country of decent size.

> No one would take your deal because the government is the problem holding > countries back in the first place.

Saying it's (always?) (usually?) the governments fault is capitalist propaganda. Tell that to Prussia, Meiji Japan, or numerous other countries with top down approach that worked. Raising the standard of living imposes demands on all sectors of society. Indeed, it would seem the most useful thing is a cultural memory of development. This possibly explains why Japan and West Germany post war could use that US money so effectively, whereas say, Italy's postwar miracle sputtered out sooner.

My deal is a good one because it's saying "get yourself going as an exporter, but we will provide you with what you need to keep advance your economy and standard of living to the point that poorer countries undercut your exports but domestic demand makes up for it". Making that last step is _crucial_ , as we need educated societies with leisure time to secure budding democracy.

(The US is failing because both we are uneducated and overworked. There is no enough energy left over for the average person to help maintain their corner of the commons.)

> China is an ancient civilization, not some new child that was just born and > needs to grow up yet.

I didn't say otherwise? Yes, my plan is patronizing, but international relations from the Hegemon usually are! (I don't know how to solve that problem.)

I don't think it's relevant to my argument, but FWIW Chinese culture is much more divorced from the past than say India's. Presumably this is due to decades of propaganda, and major disruption both due to politics (Cultural Revolution) and the huge economic changes (tons people living far away from and in very different ways than their ancestors).

> Things that work in silicon valley right now also work everywhere else in > the world. It is not magic ground.

Well, I'm suspicious how much SV is "working", and not just something that is a) first mover benefit b) flushed with quantitative easing money when EU didn't do that c) The actual big companies survive off rent seaking.

But let's just ignore all that and say SV is a smashing success.

SV succeeds because _it is in America_ , and hierarchy of needs / standard of development -wise benefits and relies on an already technologically advanced society. Asking why SV occurred in America is like asking why factories came to prominence in Britain during the empire: it was historically inevitable.

If you are nation of subsistence farmers, developing some apps is not going to solve your problems.

A parting example: When people gush about Africa skipping land lines and going straight to cellphones, they should realize this isn't all good. Being able to bury wires and pipes is key signal of internal stability, cooperation, and a technology development that will raise the standard of living, and ability to consume, for all.

> And I'm no fan of IP, but the system using it is clearly able to work here.

IP only work alright when all parties have some. That's fine amongst already- developed countries. You can be sure if some Bangladeshi company steal's Huawei stuff China will throw a fit too.

<comment><USER15> > Saying it's (always?) (usually?) the governments fault is capitalist > propaganda.

I gather from your post that you may not have much experience with startups or small business on your own, despite where we are. Because all the things you say are hard or impossible or just not done, are things you see daily. People with no IP working around that of others, which is the same problem for you as a foreign company. People in developing countries starting businesses to trade with the west (i.e. you). People in developing countries looking to what the west needs, gaining the skills via western training (often free), then making lots of money providing it to the west. And yes the killer is governments. The "wealth of nations" is a simple model: skilled laborers use technology to produce more than they need, which they can trade to people with complementary skills. That's the whole system. Borders and cultures and IP are just details to work around. Ultimately there is one big market. The only countries that needs to relive the 19th and 20th centuries in this silly development-process narrative everyone pushes, is places who's govt restricts them to a little local economy foolishly.

<comment><USER14> Actually, I work for a small tech company, and have to work around other people's undocumented interfaces all the time just like everyone else in this industry.

Your vision sorta works for software-based startups which are not capital intensive and dominated by labor costs. And I've seen first hand how telecommuting overcomes bad immigration law, allowing people in the west to cut the deals that cannot be done remotely on effectively behalf of foreign workers. Bad immigration law is indeed a government-induced problem, and this is one of the best workarounds we have.

Even then, the idea that no good local education is needed and that some body can just get a laptop, read some docs, and start making money is too optimistic.

But the larger problem is I don't think there is enough demand for YC-type stuff to significantly change the standard of living of a state. Consider how much money is dumped into SV startup before it makes money on average, and how few people SV employs due to the productivity of tech. This is not a good recipe for an entire nation.

The classic export goods are material goods; the far simpler unit economics ensure a steady stream of money back home, and the produced goods can (at least in principle) also be consumed domestically to make increasing in the standard of living not import-dependent. No country has gotten rich in the modern era without some of this, and I don't see this trend changing.

<comment><USER15> > Even then, the idea that no good local education is needed and that some > body can just get a laptop, read some docs, and start making money is too > optimistic.

This is viewing what I said in an impossibly narrow light. We don't need every man woman and child (of sufficient age to work) to be brimming with such initiative and self-agency. Just a subset of entrepreneurial ones who start businesses which bring these factors together and hire others. This happens on both sides of the ocean. If you can't hire the skills you need you train people. It's far cheaper to do in a country where your competition is the pay they get at home on the farm. This is exactly the situation in India. By the way did you see the thread about what a hassle it is to start a business in India?

Only a fraction of Americans work for large businesses. Generally more work for small businesses, so focusing only on giant scaled-up business models isn't even an accurate picture here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For some reason, after reading this article and a bunch of the comments here, I'm reminded of two quotes from two of my favorite authors:

"Standards of living far below what we would consider to be poverty have been the norm for untold thousands of years. It is not the origins of poverty which need to be explained, since the human species began in poverty. What requires explaining are the things that created and sustained higher standards of living."

from _Wealth, Poverty and Politics_ by Thomas Sowell

"Modernity needs to understand that being rich and becoming rich are not mathematically, personally, socially, and ethically the same thing."

from _The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms_ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

</comment><comment><USER17> [https://archive.is/oLIJl](https://archive.is/oLIJl)

</comment><comment><USER18> Personally I no longer support the concept of IP. Reason being that if it was enforced to the letter nobody except largest corps can't make a single thing now without breaking some patent and sued to the oblivion. As for software patents, this is just cherry on a cake of insult.

I bet there is not a single software product out there that does not break some patent.

</comment><comment><USER19> There are two sides of the story, there is a Chinese version saying that there are a lots of frauds here.

Car making is a capital burning business, you just can not do it without the wealth like elon musk.

It's kind of a venture investment here, there were so many car investment in the past few years, when there were investment bubbles, but now, the bubble is gone.

<comment><USER20> I've read in a paper somewhere that a big part of why Chinese auto manufacturers aren't as successful as Japanese or Korean ones is because they're too tied to the local government to fail. Each province in China has their own local auto company connected to the provincial government, resulting in a lot of duplicated effort and inefficiency. Japan and Korea had a lot of indigenous auto makers when they first started as well, but they allowed the weaker ones to get bought out and cannibalized to build up the stronger ones.

<comment><USER21> Japan has a very long tradition of quality and striving for perfection. China, not so much. And cars these days really need to be more than "good enough" to compete worldwide.

<comment><USER22> Japan's worldwide reputation was "garbage, low-quality stuff" until the 1960s. That's not a "very long tradition".

"At first, Japan had a widely held reputation for shoddy exports, and their goods were shunned by international markets"

For a pop-culture example look at the Back To The Future movie where the 1955 version of Dr. Brown says "No wonder this circuit failed. It says 'Made in Japan'." The 1985 version of Marty says "What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan."

<comment><USER21> That's not the kind of "stuff" I'm referring to. Any visit to Japan will reveal rich history full of incredible craftsmanship and attention to detail - engineering, arts, and design.

A similar visit to China - not so much. They have so much ancient history - but their modern story is not as pleasant (for various reasons).

I love China and have traveled across it multiple times. I think it's a beautiful country full of wonderful people - but they just don't have any kind of desire to achieve perfection like the Japanese do. And Japan was able to exit their "goods shunned by international markets" phase very quickly (Tokyo hosted the Olympics and started running the Shinkansen in 1964, less than 20 years after the war).

When will china stop making "cheap stuff"? When will they create their own proprietary tech and license it out to us?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of the TransRapid story.

[https://www.dw.com/en/china-masters-german-train- technology-...](https://www.dw.com/en/china-masters-german-train-technology- will-cut-costs/a-1982476)

<comment><USER24> Well, they did promise to cut costs to 1/3 of the German version, but they didn't actually build it:

"Originally planned to be ready for Expo 2010, the controversial project was repeatedly delayed, with final approval being granted on August 18, 2008."

"[...] In March 2009, the project was reported to be "suspended", although it had not been officially cancelled. The October 26, 2010 opening of the Shanghai–Hangzhou high-speed railway makes construction of this line unlikely."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai%E2%80%93Hangzhou_magl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai%E2%80%93Hangzhou_maglev_line)

But they keep promising it:

Title: "China's 600 km/h high-speed maglev prototype completes successful trial run"

Reading further: "The prototype didn't run at 600 km/h, but at a much lower speed as an operational debugging test."

And then: "According to CRRC, by the end of 2020, five high-speed maglev test vehicles will be rolled off the production line. Besides, a whole engineering system of the 600 km/h high-speed maglev prototype will be completed, which signifies China will master a whole set of the technology and engineering capability by that time."

"[...] China aims to put a 500-km-long high-speed maglev line into commercial use by 2025."

"[...] Using German technology, the Shanghai maglev line is a demonstration line. Since then, China has been striving to develop its independent technology in the field, where Japan and Germany have been taking leading positions."

"Step by step, the country is making solid progress. Analysts say that the successful test on Sunday signifies that China has achieved the same level as Japan."

[https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-21/China-s-600-km-h- high-...](https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-06-21/China-s-600-km-h-high-speed- maglev-completes-trial-run-RvueeEECTm/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> intellectual property is conceptually corrupt.

at the very least we should be honest and admit that it's all about being continuously paid for things we already finished doing (sometimes even generations ago).

but I am pretty sure that it will have to get worse, far worse, so bad that a Kafka seems tame before people get convinced that ownership over language is stupid.

<comment><USER26> The other way to look at it is to recognize that it is hard to invent and prove the value of something, but easy to copy and pollute once that is done. We are all familiar with unfortunate examples of this.

And yes, copyright extension, yadda yadda, but no one is being forced to enjoy, for instance, Mickey Mouse. That they do, and it endures and retains value- why is the creator not entitled to protect it as an asset for as long as people value it?

And regarding the Kafka reference, the story of his stories is itself enlightening on this subject. We only have them, and the utility of the reference, through the protective actions of his friend. Were there no Intellectual Property, they would have been burned after his death.

Cheers.

<comment><USER27> > why is the creator not entitled to protect it as an asset for as long as > people value it?

That masks the fact that IP laws are a form of regulatory capture. The original deal was to gain exclusive ownership _for a limited time_ at the cost of disclosure and understanding that it would eventually enter the public domain.

Fun fact, before trademark laws were enforced, baggage makers like Louis Vuitton just increased the quality of their stitching / logograms in order to differentiate themselves. In fact the modern LV prints are a result of this process of trying to make his goods too expensive to counterfeit. Now luxury brands can stamp on inferior quality materials and sell just as well. There's no competitive force to increase quality anymore, these brands can just put their logos on decent-but-not-top-end materials.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Managed to find below article on a bit of searching. Seems like 2019 was still good year for Saleen? [https://jalopnik.com/you-re-not-gonna-believe-the- crazy-shit...](https://jalopnik.com/you-re-not-gonna-believe-the-crazy-shit- at-saleen-s-chi-1836675160)

</comment><comment><USER29> _" How can politicians look into TV cameras and say we have a free market system when patents guarantee monopoly incomes for twenty years, preventing anyone from competing? How can they claim there are free markets when copyright rules give a guaranteed income for seventy years after a person's death? How can they claim free markets exist when one person or company is given a subsidy and not others, or when they sell off the commons that belong to all of us, at a discount, to a favoured individual or company, or when Uber, TaskRabbit and their ilk act as unregulated labour brokers, profiting from the labour of others?"_

\- Professor Guy Standing

also:

 _1\. The current political economy is based on a false idea of material abundance.

We call it pseudo-abundance. It is based on a commitment to permanent growth, the infinite accumulation of capital and debt-driven dynamics through compound interest. This is unsustainable, of course, because infinite growth is logically and physically impossible in any physically constrained, finite system.

2\. The current political economy is based on a false idea of "immaterial scarcity."

It believes that an exaggerated set of intellectual property monopolies—for copyrights, trademarks and patents—should restrain the sharing of scientific, social and economic innovations. Hence the system discourages human cooperation, excludes many people from benefiting from innovation and slows the collective learning of humanity. In an age of grave global challenges, the political economy keeps many practical alternatives sequestered behind private firewalls or unfunded if they cannot generate adequate profits."_

\- By Michel Bauwens, Franco Iacomella

</comment><comment><USER30> Should we really be surprised at this?

</comment><comment><USER31> This happen to be a well-reported news on the Chinese internet where I was able to find more details. And the author's own claims are dubious and sketchy. It was never a three way deal, he may have deals with a Chinese company that owns share. That maybe why he said it's a threeway deal, but it's two two-way deals. He never made any deal with Chinese officials, but another Chinese business owner who made the deal with the government. The fact he didn't say is that the company was in debt and bankrupted, whose employees are still trying to get paid for their work. Another claim he make is that the local government did fulfill their monetary investment. The author said the money that the local government gave was not 'nearly enough', which is impossibly large tax-payer money, to build streamlined car production, but both parties agree to the deal in the beginning, it was the expectation. And the investor would of course, expect the invested to deliver the said product with said investment, which, as the author said, didn't happen.

What's more. There is an whisleblower within the company who work in the accounting department shared with the public on open internet months ago that the non-investing shareholders of the company who didn't put in any money, instead intellectual properties, take mortgage out of their shares, which would be unacceptable in most investment scenario because unless the patents are sold, it's outright stealing from the investing shareholder who put in actual money especially so when the final product weren't made and sold. The accountant told the public that those patents are bought with 2.2 million US dollar but were valued as 100 million, and 'technologies' that were included in the valuation are yet to be perfected, that can't be used in production.

This rant piece is nothing more than a shameful attempt to exploit American sentiment on Chinese 'property theft' trying to sway an on-going court judgement to the author's private financial interest.

If there are any wrong-doings should be left with the court to decide, but there are enough ground for an investigation to be launched, or at least, for the investor to be angry. If the author actually ran an successful operation, I would feel sorry for him, the evaluation issues won't be a problem, but that simply wasn't the case. It is a catastrophic waste of public money for a failed venture of the author and his partners.

I can not attest to if the author is making those claims unaware of those problems that he himself is also cheated by the other party, which is the Chinese company who mortgaged their shares and actually owns the patents. That company bought the company the author originally founded in the US, leading the private Chinese companies to own the author's patents.

I'd say the Chinese government is the fool in this scenario.

<comment><USER32> Author is an extremely successful businessman and inventor with something like 30+ years of track record running business in US without defrauding anyone.

I will believe him over PRC propaganda any time.

<comment><USER31> Those business transactions could be easily verified. Had he been such a successful businessmen, why was their initiative failed so miserable as he himself acknowledged when the said fund is provided in full? He quite literally burned 100 million dollars over the course three years without the company being operational sustainable let alone profit, in what scenario would an investor be ok that their actual 100 million us dollar all turning into dust? His own operation here in the US are bankrupted as well, in what sense is that a successful business? or that he is a successful businessmen? All of those are year old material existed on the internet before his wsj piece. You should be easily able to find more. Following the bankruptcy, a company's asset will be liquidated. He also claimed the government filed patents without his consent, while it's the company he worked at filed and owned those patents, it's the company's property from the beginning, that's how it works, surprised? get a job. any financial investor would require how it should be done. Be reminded he have 100 million cash in hand to spend, while 'technology' was valued at 100 million too, with two parties each owning half of the company, which can't be said to be a bad deal.

[https://www.autoevolution.com/news/saleen-might-file-for- ban...](https://www.autoevolution.com/news/saleen-might-file-for-bankruptcy- owes-millions-according-to-us-sec-filing-89360.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The real question here is: Is it getting better? For example Alibaba is putting a lot of effort into combating fraud (I.e. fake products) on its platform. The Chinese government also made serious moves. Does IP theft exist and is it serious? For sure. Is it getting better? Probably yes. Does being in an election year help to have realistic reporting on this issue? Probably not. And BTW have a look at how Japan grew in the 60s and 70s.

</comment><comment> a0-prw 20% ? I'm disappointed. I would have hoped that a nation as smart as China could be more effective than that.

</comment><comment><USER34> Not really off tangent: I won't be surprised if this attracts lots of comments along the lines "US/ WESTERN COUNTRIES did this before too and therefore no better than China".

I just can't understand why when it comes to geopolitics, HN just can't keep the discussion related to the submission? Somehow US/ western countries have to enter the discussion as a bad benchmark...

<comment><USER35> No-one has yet, but what's the problem with it?

America stole Britain's intellectual property for a leg up a century or two ago, now a different country is doing it to them.

It's just the normal cycle, and America have long had a lot of artificial legal protections in place to try and stop it and limit the rest of the world's prosperity.

The harsh copyright laws and IP agreements they've bullied the rest of the world into accepting are beginning to fail, and these sort of articles are a direct consequence of that, why wouldn't we discuss it? It's an intellectually interesting effect.

There's also the other question of is it really stealing? America still has the knowledge, after all. Copyright laws were supposed to encourage innovation, but as many here have argued, have gone too far, what's the surprise now a country has enough power to say No to America, they're saying No.

<comment><USER36> _America stole Britain 's intellectual property for a leg up a century or two ago, now a different country is doing it to them._

There's a difference between copying from open source patent database and reverse engineering versus blatantly engaging in industrial espionage, which is a whole another kettle of fish.

Or claiming to be playing by the same set of rules but blatantly violating them.

 _The harsh copyright laws and IP agreements they 've bullied the rest of the world into accepting are beginning to fail, and these sort of articles are a direct consequence of that, why wouldn't we discuss it? It's an intellectually interesting effect. _

Patent systems should be considered harmful to nations that enforce or implement them, but that's another story for another day.

<comment><USER35> I think you need to read up on your history. Here's an easy place to start.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=america+stole+britain+intell...](https://www.google.com/search?q=america+stole+britain+intellectual+property)

There's plenty of documented evidence that America illegally stole tons of IP, often paid for by the state no less, otherwise known as industrial espionage.

I'm sure they did it to all the European powers of the time too, probably plenty of examples of stolen tech from Spain, the Dutch, etc.

As I'm sure Britain, etc. did to the civilizations more advanced to them in the centuries before too, you can bet there were proclamations about not taking technology out of the cities that had monopolies on them, and were smuggled out illegally or simply attacked for them.

<comment><USER36> _Too much effort? America llegally stole tons of IP, otherwise known as industrial espionage._

What about it? That was over a century ago. It still doesn't make China's industrial espionage ethical or right.

<comment><USER14> Let's put it this way, if American companies had their way, china would still be low-education hoard of manual labors with no advanced industry. Obvious no country wants to end up in this situation.

Let's promote actually good things like free speech, privacy, etc., and not draconian IP policies that just allow the same rent seeking giant corporations everywhere to fuck us all over everywhere. If we tie everything together, we'll loose all of it.

<comment><USER37> Why would companies want "low-education hoard of manual labors with no advanced industry"? There would be no way they could buy American products.

<comment><USER14> Because they can sell them to American consumers at high margin.

Companies have been neglecting the demand side for ages now. Increasing American household debt bought them some time, but isn't a very sustainable resource.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> China only recognizes patents applied for and granted by the China patent system. I believe you engaged a Chinese company to handle the JV. I worked in China 8 years. The amount of obfuscation and outright theft is beyond comprehension.

</comment><comment><USER39> Article is behind paywall, is there alternative link?

<comment><USER40> It seems they activate the paywall after a post gets traction. Because there was none before.

<comment><USER41> Easy bypass is to run it through a url shortener, and then outline.com.

Works for NYT as well, and most others.

<comment><USER42> NYT can be bypassed using Reader View, but the WSJ seems to be able to disable it.

<comment><USER41> Sometimes. I find it can be hit and miss. Depending on how many articles ive read....er loaded.

Outline trick works for a lot. Even sites like financial times etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The US is in withdrawal from 4 decades of policy that intended to bring China out of the 3rd world and into the first. The motivation was to reduce the threat of nuclear war and at the same time, create a major new market for trade.

Those positive intentions did not foresee what China would actually become, and even if US administrations all along could have foreseen it, they may have persisted, believing that reducing nuclear threat was worthwhile, even with the current adversarial outcome.

The line that got crossed that I don't believe anyone anticipated was the genocide of entire ethnic and religious populations. Those horrors have a moral weight that counterbalances the threat of nuclear war. We have no choice but to completely decouple, and what's more, may still find ourselves in the shooting war we were trying to evade.

</comment><comment><USER44> There's only one way out and ( to my opinion) it's redirecting resources to support "Made in India 2025"

<comment><USER45> Indian manufacturing is notoriously bad for the same reasons. So many Indian companies will backstab foreigners. They make fun of their gullibility, "firangis" and there is so much local callousness in India against foreigners.

<comment><USER44> The problem is coming up with a solution.

India > China and also has a billion civilians.

They are nowhere near that abusive as China. And are more western minded.

What's your best workable solution then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> If China does it to the US it's bad and newsworthy but the fact that Germany is the most spied country worldwide by the US for industrial espionage this seems like hypocrisy at best which is what the US is known for anyway. At least China is consistent.

</comment><comment><USER47> Reading the title and the url my first thought literally: "What? someone from Wall Street Journal admitted they are bought and paid by the Chinese?"

Not joking here WSJ has admitted, after a lot of pressure, to receive money from China Daily it's just not very well known.

</comment><comment><USER48> Is IP theft in China a problem?

Yes

"I would bring experience, design, engineering and related technologies developed over my 40-year career in the automotive industry building race cars and high-performance street cars. My contributions to the deal were valued at $800 million"

Yeah. Sure. And then the ferry tale starts...

(I live in China and work with some VC guys)

" the joint venture applied for 510 Chinese patents for my designs, technologies, trade secrets and engineering developments. Most of the patent filings didn't even list me as the inventor. "

Yeh. Sure. I may believe this number since patents applied for/issued it is a metric for Chinese companies based on government requirements. 1 Person? 500 Patents? be assured that most of it are bullshit patents.</comment>


A smart plug that resets router and modem when WiFI fails - <AUTHOR> http://resetplug.com <comment><USER2> In the 90s we used the serial port to send a heartbeat via a daemon into a Resistor / Capacitor combo. If the voltage dropped it fired a relay to press reset on the PC.

That's how we got good uptime without being on call :)</comment>


Is nuclear fusion poised to deliver? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/02/after-60-years-is-nuclear-fusion-finally-poised-to-deliver <comment><USER2> I saw a guy called Dennis Whyte from MIT give a shockingly bullish fusion presentation a few weeks ago.

His view is that new superconductors make a compact (as in jet size) reactor that does better than break even and is operable feasible in five years.

He seemed to know his stuff

<comment><USER3> Did he mention using a stellarator as oppose to a tokamak? Apparently computer modeling makes a stellarator more feasible and I was wondering if using superconducting materials would make it even more so

<comment><USER4> Stellarators have become easier to design, but they're still a complete pain in the arse to build. Wendelstein 7-X was nine years behind schedule and significantly over-budget, mainly due to unforeseen problems in assembling the coils. The National Compact Stellerator Experiment was abandoned in 2008, again due to construction delays.

For stellerators to become viable, we need some major advances in manufacturing technology.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendelstein_7-X) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Compact_Stellarator_E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Compact_Stellarator_Experiment)

<comment><USER5> But isn't simpler coil assembly what Mr. Whyte proposes? New Superconductors allow for simpler and more powerful coils, allowing smaller, cheaper designs. That should translate to the Stellarator configuration equally well, or am I wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> An alternative approach to generating power from fusion:

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

 _" A typical design called for a 4 m thick steel alloy blast-chamber, 30 m (100 ft) in diameter and 100 m (300 ft) tall,[10] to be embedded in a cavity dug into bedrock in Nevada."_

It involves dropping H-bombs into holes in the ground - but at least we know those work... :-)

<comment><USER7> We also have good idea about Thorium reactors. There's plenty of it around, and good reasons to think they'd be safer than our current reactors.

<comment><USER8> Thorium reactors have no advantage over any other molten salt reactor.

The novelty in thorium isn't the fissile material but then reactor design which isn't novel either it just not a breeder reactor so no one is going to spend billions if when push comes to shove it can't be used to make nukes on the way.

<comment><USER7> _Thorium reactors have no advantage over any other molten salt reactor._

More plentiful fuel?

<comment><USER8> And a considerably more expensive fuel cycle with breeding being questionable at best.

And you then either have to chose if you are going to irradiate the thorium when you make your fuel without purification which will introduce u232 into the mix which undergoes gamma decay making the thorium fuel very dangerous to handle, or purify it and end up with u233 in the mix which effectively makes thorium a dual use fuel now so all weapon related restrictions apply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 18 billion USD for a fusion reactor.

installed utility solar is right now about $1.50 / watt. The subsidy is 1/3 that. So $0.50 / watt.

$18 billion would incentivize 36 billion watts.

36 GW of fully installed utility solar is about half of all the PV solar installed in the world in 2016.

36GW vs 3GW (iter's 500MW * 6 because the panels provide maybe just 4 hours per day)

I realize fusion may be long term important, so well spent. Just hope people are remembering we've got that big fusion ball in the sky.

<comment><USER10> I expect my lights to turn on when it's dark or cloudy outside. Fusion facilitates that, solar doesn't (unless we also get breakthroughs in battery tech).

<comment><USER11> Lighting takes very little power once you switch to LEDs. I replaced all the bulbs in my house a couple of years back, and the total draw - were we to turn all interior and exterior lights on at once - would come in at around 250 watts. This is effectively negligible - the refrigerator alone uses at least twice that much.

In any case, the real answer is not solar by itself, but solar plus other sustainable sources like wind and hydro.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'll believe it when I see it. Fusion power is in that bin of technologies/capabilities that are _always_ 20 years away, which includes things like cures for aging and manned missions to Mars.

...or maybe I've just become too cynical.

<comment><USER13> Fusion being 20 years away was contingent on receiving an appropriate level of funding. Given the funding it's received (below the "fusion never" level), it's exactly on track. In fact, if anything it's ahead of "never" given the advances in superconducting materials we've made, since the director of MIT's fusion program seems to think that we're now only 5 years away from energy- positive fusion.

[http://i.imgur.com/sjH5r.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/sjH5r.jpg) (source: [https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/04/11/0435231/mit- fus...](https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/04/11/0435231/mit-fusion- researchers-answer-your-questions))

MIT director: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4)

Manned missions to Mars are also perfectly feasible. Like fusion, we just don't devote enough resources to it.

Pretty much anything space-related would be much easier with two simple steps: first, you build a launch loop to drop launch costs. It's all the capabilities of a space elevator but doesn't require any exotic materials. Launch costs are estimated at ~$3 per kg for a 20GW system, figuring $30B construction cost with 5-year payback if you can hit 100% utilization. And no that's not a typo, that's 5 years to profit at $3/kg - where's Elon Musk when you need him, right? :P

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

[http://launchloop.com/LaunchLoop?action=AttachFile&do=get&ta...](http://launchloop.com/LaunchLoop?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=isdc2002loop.pdf)

Then, you drag an asteroid into orbit and mine it, so you have a bunch of material that's not at the bottom of a gravity well. Both of those steps are in a similar category to a manned mission to Mars - feasible, but would take some serious engineering and serious resources. But once you do them, you also open some serious doors. There is a massive quantity of literally any metal you want in an asteroid. One small rocky asteroid has about 10x the total amount of minerals ever mined on Earth, and why stop at one?

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

Even if we couldn't feasibly return them to earth, they're infinitely more valuable in orbit where they are. We are talking about just a mind-boggling amount of resources exactly where we need them.

If you have large amounts of lead and other radiation-resistant material in orbit you've solved one of the main impediments to a Mars mission, and large- scale space construction in general. Then it just comes down to lifting enough fuel to get you on your way, or finding a way to refine it in orbit.

Heck, you can even use the husk of the asteroid itself as an Aldrin cycler. You kit it out as a radiation shelter, then you can put it on a periodic orbit that will make a 146-day trip to Mars every 2 years and then you never have to touch it again, you just dock your payload to it and ride it along. That way you don't need to accelerate and decelerate all the mass of your radiation shelter every single trip. There are even some orbits that will make faster trips (but less frequently)

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

Another possibility you open up there is using some of a rocky asteroid's uranium for nuclear-thermal rocket engines. The problem with them has always been that nobody wants to use them for takeoff, or even really risk lifting them off with a regular rocket. But if you source uranium in orbit, that problem is solved. Firing them in orbit is still kinda questionable, but it's much more plausible to be able to give them a good kick to build distance if you're not starting from a terrestrial launch. Having orbital infrastructure just makes everything so incredibly much easier since you are saving at least 2 stages, maybe three.

Nuclear-thermal rockets use hydrogen as a reaction mass, which you may know as "the most abundant element in the universe". Ramscoops could even allow such craft to have a plausible mechanism to acquire more fuel (reaction mass, technically) on long-duration or interstellar missions. You could even combine nuclear thermal propulsion to get you up to ramscoop speeds, switch to ramjet for cruising, and then brake on the nuclear-thermal engine again - all on a single fuel source.

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

Viable interstellar probes are the marquee selling point of the uranium, but of course you would also be able to power reactors in orbit to run all this infrastructure, breed more Pu-239 for RTGs for probes safely in orbit without the risk of a launch accident, etc.

At this point the solutions exist on paper to go anywhere we want within our solar system, and even start exploring beyond. You can even make it pretty easy by laying down this infrastructure. But we could do it the hard way right now as well, if we wanted to. There's nothing stopping you from using big rockets to lift big parts into orbit and then assembling a huge ship suitable for a long-duration interplanetary mission. We just don't want to. Bummer, especially since we could get unlucky tomorrow and have another K-T extinction event.

Aging is a tough nut to crack and we're not going to plausibly break Death anytime soon (maybe in a few hundred more years - but sorry kiddos, that still means that in the grand scale of the human timeline you still are some of the last people that are ever going to die). But there's animals that are capable of living much longer lives than you would expect, and we can certainly adopt some of their mechanisms for maintaining genetic homeostasis. There's no reason to think that our current lifespan is the limit, after all people living to 100+ was absurd not too long ago. Nature and science undoubtedly still have some tricks up their sleeves.

You don't suddenly discover one weird trick to live forever (doctors hate him!). It's a debugging process, we are going to crack one problem and then move onto the next one, getting a little farther each time as we go. Someone will figure out how to switch cancer cells off, someone else will figure out how to cure dementia, then the average lifespan will start creeping up to 150 years old. At that point the predominant cause of death will shift to skin failure or boneitis or some other failure point, we will spend another 50 years curing that, and the cycle repeats. (a word of warning: do NOT use squirrel bones)

<comment><USER14> I was actually reading about mining uranium from asteroids recently. It seems like it would be impractical because the chemical processes (involving water) that concentrate uranium on Earth don't operate in asteroids. How does uranium mining and refinement actually work in space?

<comment><USER15> My theory is that could be the martian "killer app"; shallow gravity well and benign climate (unlike venus) for the industrial processing of asteroid sourced resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Probably not poised. At best ITER might show some interesting results, but it's not a cost effective way to build a power plant.

<comment><USER17> While I would of course be very happy if a workable fusion system ever becomes practical I think there is almost no chance of it happening in my lifetime. Every time there is some positive news like this going back 50 years it turns out that we are still "20 years away".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The article fails to mention the elephant in the room: damage from high-speed neutrons. From [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-small- fusion-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-small-fusion- energy-start-ups-conquer-the-problems-that-killed-the-giants/) Deuterium- tritium fusion releases most of its energy as high-speed neutrons, which damage steel parts and gradually turn them radioactive.

In contrast, much simpler Molten-salt-fueled reactors can burn current stock piles of spent fuel rods. Safely generating electricity while reducing nuclear waste. References:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_Salt_Reactor#Molten- salt...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_Salt_Reactor#Molten- salt_fueled_reactors)

[http://transatomicpower.com/white_papers/TAP_White_Paper.pdf](http://transatomicpower.com/white_papers/TAP_White_Paper.pdf)

The molten salt reactor (MSR) in generation IV: Overview and perspectives [http://www.daretothink.org/wp- content/uploads/2015/03/serp14...](http://www.daretothink.org/wp- content/uploads/2015/03/serp1401.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER19> > "We are convinced we can deliver hundreds of megawatts through Iter," up to > 10 times more energy than is put in, says David Campbell, the director of > science and operations at Iter (which means "the way" in Latin).

That doesn't sound great to me.

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

I'm all for fusion but I think we're some way off it being a staple energy source.

<comment><USER20> It actually doesn't matter. It just has to be energy positive and cost competitive.

Take the case of fully tracked wholesale cost of fusion power at $0.01 a kw-h. Would you buy more expensive power just because it had a better EROI?

<comment><USER21> Maybe I'm missing something but since there's tons of government money going into this, you're not paying the full cost. There's an externality which makes doing the same thing somewhere else unlikely to happen.

Edit: I'm not sure why this is getting downvoted. I'm asking a genuine question. It's not just about energy invested vs. energy harvested. If it costs $100 to build a power plant and you put $1 of energy in and get $2 worth of energy out over its lifetime, you didn't get $2 worth of energy for $1, you got $2 worth of energy for $101.

You'd have to look at the opportunity cost of some other energy technology to know if it was a good investment or not.

Am I looking at this wrong somehow?

<comment><USER20> I don't know why you were downvoted, but my point was that if it costs less after accounting for the costs you mention, the EROI doesn't matter. That's what I meant by "fully tracked".

<comment><USER22> If it costs less after accounting for construction and decommissioning costs, then the EROEI is in all likelihood quite good. Cost can often be used as a proxy for energy invested, since energy isn't free after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have more hope in the German fusion reactor that was constructed in 2015. It would provide continus energy output and not the 50 minutes or so outburst of energy of the ITER reactor.

[http://newswise.com/articles/pppl-and-max-planck- physicists-...](http://newswise.com/articles/pppl-and-max-planck-physicists- confirm-the-precision-of-magnetic-fields-in-the-most-advanced-stellarator-in- the-world)

"Stellarators confine the hot, charged gas, otherwise known as plasma, that fuels fusion reactions in twisty -- or 3D -- magnetic fields, compared with the symmetrical -- or 2D --fields that the more widely used tokamaks create. The twisty configuration enables stellarators to control the plasma with no need for the current that tokamaks must induce in the gas to complete the magnetic field. Stellarator plasmas thus run little risk of disrupting, as can happen in tokamaks, causing the internal current to abruptly halt and fusion reactions to shut down."

<comment><USER8> None of them are self sustaining or energy positive as of yet.

Fusion works but stellar fusion is effectively powered by gravity, no one knows yet if it will be viable on smaller scales hence why while a lot of process has been made no one has a made sufficient progress to claim they have a working reactor.

You can initiate fusion in your garage making it energy positive even by a small margin is what we haven't really managed to break.

<comment><USER23> > You can initiate fusion in your garage making it energy positive even by a > small margin is what we haven't really managed to break

That is WORLD changing right there. No we don't have fusion, but the sustaining part has come down to possibly just needing Lithium. Now if you look at where we have come from we are getting closer to where we actually will get more energy out and that will be a game changer.

<comment><USER8> Lithium is for Aneutronic fusion, while this is being researched it's a completely different fusion mechanism than the hydrogen plasma these reactors fuse.

I made a few comments about this in a previous thread [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12877466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12877466)

<comment><USER24> You're thinking of boron.

<comment><USER8> No, I'm thinking of Lithium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you have ever wondered about why one goes through the difficulties of the tritium fuel cycle: It's really politically motivated, so none of the participating countries has to rely on an external fuel supply.

</comment><comment><USER26> If you are depending on ITER to do it, then forget about it. ITER is a _money sink_. It was designed to suck up as much fusion research money as possible to _slow the progress of fusion development_.

Don't take my word for it. Go to their website, study the annual reports and time lines, the ever consistent delays, and the mammoth budget and budget overruns. Then go read about the (far too few) more promising experiments in other labs achieved with shoe-string budgets.

</comment><comment><USER27> "Give it another 20 years" \- Said every year since 1980

<comment><USER28> While funding fell through the floor and came no where near what the recommendation was when those models were developed. Those "in another 20 years predictions" are simple adjusted time lines based on the current level of funding.

Source: [https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/04/11/0435231/mit- fus...](https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/04/11/0435231/mit-fusion- researchers-answer-your-questions)

<comment><USER29> It's not a failure of the model, and it's unknown if the science failed (as it didn't get a chance to be fully explored), but it's a social/economic/governmental failure. Probably for the same reasons that we are failing to address climate change - in large part, the entrenched interests of existing energy companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can this thing blow up? I mean is there an equivalent in fusion technology to a meltdown in fission tech?

<comment><USER31> Theoretically yes, every star is a self-sustaining fusion reactor.

However, in practice not because fusion requires much more delicate conditions to work then fission. A breach in the reactor chamber would cause the plasma to quickly expand and cool down, which means the necessary conditions for fusion disappear. Basically fission can cause a self-sustaining chain reaction once started, while fusion requires very specific artificial conditions to be maintained.

<comment><USER32> More precisely, stellar fusion is self-sustaining because of the immense gravitational pressure. You need around 1/10 the mass of the sun for this to be possible. In the current economic situation, it would be difficult to get funding for a fusion reactor that large.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Exciting times. I'll be watching this, but I'm very curious to see what happens with stellarator designs which appear to be much easier to operate (if massively harder to build).

</comment><comment><USER34> How do they deal with weather on complex installations this size? I have to imagine some of the equipment they're installing isn't meant to be wet?

<comment><USER35> My guess is that they first build the concrete support for the instruments, then make a roof, and then bring in the actual instruments.

Much like an ordinary building, I suppose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> 5 years ago, I would have thought that ITER is a step in the right direction.

After studying alternative physical model and looking into more logical sun models that explain more while require less assumptions, I came to the conclusion that ITER is the wrong way to go. Dense Plasma Focus is way more promising for hot fusion direction while still not optimal.

<comment><USER37> What're your credentials?

<comment><USER38> Or reasoning?

<comment><USER36> beta factor is bad. stellerator is better, but still wrong approach to fusion. It really depends on the physical model you use - I don't think in the Standard Model anymore - it's falsified and there are better models out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Paraphrasing Musashi: Respect nuclear fusion power, without relying on it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Fission provides.

</comment><comment><USER41> > Is nuclear fusion poised to deliver?

No.

Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

</comment><comment><USER42> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

<comment><USER43> "Is Betteridge's law of headlines correct?" (brilliant title, given what follows)

[http://calmerthanyouare.org/2015/03/19/betteridges- law.html](http://calmerthanyouare.org/2015/03/19/betteridges-law.html)

"In other words, it appears as if roughly a quarter of all headlines which end in a question mark can be answered by the word no. You can go ahead and call that Linander's law of headlines, if you will."

Don't miss the data:

[https://gist.github.com/matslina/64601f39ef12bd653be6](https://gist.github.com/matslina/64601f39ef12bd653be6)

<comment><USER44> Very many of those YES headlines were followed by favorable articles (like this one), but concretely, I would answer NO.

Even their own supportive authors felt it wasn't clear enough to qualify for a statement.

<comment><USER43> I also did a manual inspection of the data and ended up mostly agreeing with the author of the post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is a very laymen, simplistic comment, but it sounds like the engineering complexities for industrialization need a little help from AI.

I know nothing about AI/machine learning, but if these processes could be unleashed to simplify the engineering processes then maybe cold fusion could be cost effective.

Humans are just very slow and the complexity is almost overwhelming.

<comment><USER46> This is certainly the case, but not necessarily AI. Huge supercomputers are used to run physics simulations to assist with material design processes at national labs [0]. I cannot imagine that some of that work is related to dealing with material at the extremes where fusion would be pushing the state of the art. Genetic algorithms have been used for exploring large design spaces, as well [1]. It's all really cool stuff.

[0]: [https://lanl.gov/org/padste/adeps/materials-science- technolo...](https://lanl.gov/org/padste/adeps/materials-science-technology/) [1]: [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=genetic+algorithm...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=genetic+algorithm+design+antenna&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=)</comment></comment>


The Slate programming language - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/briantrice/slate-language#readme <comment><USER2> Slate has been around for a while, and has some interesting concepts (prototype and multi-dispatch).

The brains behind it seems to have lost interest years ago, and the "Jobs" behind it has a major personality disorder that just turns people off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Should I just delete this? Not worth the space and/or time?

<comment><USER2> Like I said, Slate has some cool concepts in its core, but nobody seems interested. Someone with too much time on his hands could write an awesome Smalltalk-like environment around it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll leave it then - maybe the cool core concepts will inspire someone. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Here's <http://lee.fov120.com/ecoop.pdf> Lee Salzman's (the brains behind Slate) paper on Prototype with Multi-Dispatch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool - thanks.</comment></comment>


MSI SteelSeries Keyboard LED Controller for Linux - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/stevelacy/msi-keyboard-gui <comment><USER2> For anyone who wonder what it is it's for a the MSI gaming laptops with "SteelSeries Engine" supported keyboards.

It allows you to change the lighting and possibly do macro keys under Linux.

<comment><USER3> Why would anyone run Linux on a _gaming laptop_ , given that this would pretty much preclude playing any actual _games_?

<comment><USER4> Where have you been living the past few years? I only game on Linux.

<comment><USER2> What exactly do you play i wonder, sure there are some games, some 1st party games from Valve come out to Linux, some 2K titles will get a Linux release on steam 3 years down the line (and usually be somewhat broken), and there are some indie games.

But please let's not portray Linux as a viable gaming OS.

<comment><USER5> Let see Top 10 Games by play hours, all on native linux (no WINE)

1\. Borderlands 2

2\. Shadow of Mordor

3\. Cities Skylines

4\. Civ V

5\. Stellaris

6\. Borderlands Pre-sequel

7\. Space Run

8\. X-Com

9\. Wasteland 2

10\. Race the Sun

Plus I just bought like 10 or so titles on Steam Summer Sale, all Linux but have not had time to play them. Solar2, universe Sandbox 2, Tropico 5, Portal 2 are a few of those.

>>But please let's not portray Linux as a viable gaming OS.

I game exclusively under Linux now, if the game is not available for Linux native I will not buy it.

I no longer own any Windows Computers.

<comment><USER6> Just to throw it in here since I don't see the games mentioned much, the Metro Last Light and 2033 remakes run natively on Linux, and are amazing games (and AAA).

<comment><USER2> Metro isn't a AAA title

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is using libusb from Node via [https://www.npmjs.com/package/msi- keyboard](https://www.npmjs.com/package/msi-keyboard) / [https://github.com/stevelacy/msi-keyboard](https://github.com/stevelacy/msi- keyboard).

</comment><comment><USER8> Neat, but I always went for function over flash. Which is why I use the excellent Unicomp keyboards.

<shameless-plug type=semi-serious-parody>

They're (relatively) cheap, virtually indestructable, and as good as a gaming keyboard, if not better, and much less flashy. I would say they're the best keyboard on the market right now.

</shameless-plug></comment>


Ask HN: Recommended audio books for a road trip? - <AUTHOR> I'll be road tripping from SF down to San Diego, and am in search of some good audio books to listen to on the way.
If I had to rate which sort of content I'd want before others:
1) A damn good story 2) Valuable life lessons 3) Leadership advice for work
Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson. Can't get better work leadership advice than Uncle Enzo. Then again, the protagonist has a pretty strong work ethic as well:

"The Deliverator used to make software. Still does, sometimes. But if life were a mellow elementary school run by well-meaning education Ph.D.s, the Deliverator's report card would say: "Hiro is so bright and creative but needs to work harder on his cooperation skills."

So now he has this other job. No brightness or creativity involved—but no cooperation either. Just a single principle: the Deliverator stands tall, your pie in thirty minutes or you can have it free, shoot the driver, take his car, file a class-action suit. The Deliverator has been working this job for six months, a rich and lengthy tenure by his standards, and has never delivered a pizza in more than twenty-one minutes."

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd put Harry Potter under 1), but YMMV. That's what I've been using for a few months now.

Gorgeously read by Stephen Fry.</comment>


Show HN: Self taught coder, releasing unity horror game - <AUTHOR> hey HN!
6 months ago my partner quit his job after learning C# in his spare time, to work on a horror game.
He taught himself 3D modelling, unity coding, texture mapping and even how to write shaders.
Today he released it:
https://deliriumgame.com
I know games aren't common on HN, but I'm proud of his unfailing resolution to learn to code, and I hope this encourages other devs out there too! <comment><USER2> 3D modelling seems to be the most difficult skill in order to turn noise into "productive-signal" in that set. Did he had prior exposure? If só, for how long? What was his method of learning? Congratulations to your friend. From an outsider's perspective, solo shipping a game looks like a very challenging endervour.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, how long did it take him to learn C#?

<comment><AUTHOR> The whole 6 months and still learning!, starting by editing existing scripts, the learnt about events (in unity these are done by overriding methods) then a bit about classes / importing. Then time, states, OOP. Then external systems (saving, loading etc)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Rocket Validator, automated site-wide HTML validation for large sites - <AUTHOR> https://rocketvalidator.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I'm the creator of Rocket Validator - it's a subscription-based service, but there's a free demo you can try, no signup required.

Some parts of it are open sourced:

[https://github.com/jaimeiniesta/funkspector](https://github.com/jaimeiniesta/funkspector)

[https://github.com/sitevalidator/funchaku](https://github.com/sitevalidator/funchaku)

[https://github.com/sitevalidator/nu-cat](https://github.com/sitevalidator/nu- cat)

Thanks!</comment>


The Model Specific Registers of EC2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-09-15/the-msrs-of-ec2.html

<comment><USER2> Great stuff. I haven't tried figuring it out on cloud computers, but even when I have root access, turbo boost often enough seems to make precise measurements difficult. On Linux, with the exception of i7z (which he mentions) and 'turbostat' (which I usually prefer: [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/tools/power/x8...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/tools/power/x86/turbostat/turbostat.c)) CPU speeds are almost always reported using the nominal speed rather than the actual speed.

And even those tools just report an average speed, which means the part of the program you care about might be running faster or slower than the rest. The new Haswell-EP chips even have both an additional AVX base and AVX turbo speed, and switch speed for any portion of code that uses full width vectors. As a result, his traditional solutions 2 (read the performance counters) and 3 (write a test loop) can be harder than they sound.

So while the reading the MSR's can help a lot to diagnose the issue and to reduce the error, if you really want reliable measurements, the "turn it off in the BIOS" option is the best choice. But even this can be harder than it sounds, as it seems some BIOS will lie and use it anyway. At least, I have one Dell Haswell machine to which I have root but not physical access, which i7z and turbostat show to be running Turbo Boost although the otherwise reliable on site admin swears he's checked several times that it's turned off in BIOS.

It seems like it should be possible to turn Turbo Boost on or off by _writing_ to the appropriate MSR but I haven't succeeded with this yet. Is there a trick I'm missing? Has anyone else had success doing it this way? It would be nice to be able to turn it off as part of the timing routine, and then turn it back on for normal operation after.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Relatively cool: between 60 and 70 degrees Celsius._

That sounds a bit on the high end, considering that 65 is the highest my system (early i7) goes when fully loaded... but then looking at the temperature graph, it looks like they're _really_ pushing them to the limits and letting thermal throttling take care of the rest - the spec for that particular model is ~80 max.

Since this is a VM, there's always a remote chance that they can trap the MSR reads and return whatever data they want. (Maybe it could even be used as a convert channel...?)

<comment><USER4> In a data center, it probably makes sense to cool this stuff only as much as necessary. I bet the 60-70 degree figure is the result of some extensive analysis and experimentation by Amazon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Remember that turbo boost increases the core clock speed but not the bus clock or the speed of devices. A 10% increase in the core clock _may_ yield a 10% increase in benchmark performance, but for macrobenchmarks the effect is liable to be significantly less.

<comment><USER6> Still, I'm assuming all layers of your cache are running 10% faster as well. Definitely useful for some work. I'm working on a JavaScript JIT compiler and I would say that dynamic languages tend to generate much bulkier code in terms of instruction count because of dynamic type tests, inline caches and such, but they don't necessarily need to access more data (outside of program instructions). For this kind of bulky code, faster single core performance definitely does matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone who screams at hard disks to see how vibration affects them is bound to discover lots of other interesting things.</comment>


Multiple vulnerabilities in ntpsec 1.1.2 and earlier (PoC exploits available) - <AUTHOR> https://dumpco.re/blog/ntpsec-bugs <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: two unauthenticated out-of-bounds read, one authenticated NULL pointer exception, and one authenticated out-of-bounds write bug in ntpsec. Proof of concept exploits are available.</comment>


Crowd's reaction to Google's new logo - <AUTHOR> http://blog.zmxv.com/2015/09/crowds-reaction-to-googles-new-logo.html

<comment><USER2> Very interesting analysis! There are about half positive and half native words about the new logo. But all words about classic logo are positive!

In any case, logo change doesn't matter much for big companies. People won't start or stop using your product because of logo change. I don't understand the rational behind the change.

</comment><comment><USER3> This just in: people dislike change initially but move on quickly

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks like PlaySkool to me...</comment>


Interview: Second Life founder Philip Rosedale  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2008/08/interview-philip-rosedale.html?partner=fasttake <comment><USER2> "If someone is on your left and someone else is on your right, you hear them on your left and on your right. You can't do this with a speakerphone, you can't do it with most videoconferencing systems and you can't do it with Skype."

if this is really useful why shouldn't Skype randomly place participants on 2D map which displays where each participant's voice should be coming from?</comment>


'Call of Duty: Black Ops 3': 5 ways it's different - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2015-04-duty-black-ops-ways.html

<comment><USER2> Call of duty 4, patch note 5.0</comment>


The cyber-attack that sent an Alaskan community back in time - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190108-the-cyber-attack-that-sent-an-alaskan-community-back-in-time <comment><USER2> i have first hand knowledge regarding what led up to this.

As an admin/sysman have a firm up to date security policy in place, and be sure your employees understand it is vital. some minimal training regarding how to recognize phishing and social engineering would have went a long way toward hardening the people aspect of attack surface.

The extent of damage was very preventable multiple opportunities to avoid further damage were not even considered.</comment>


Retail Arbitrage at Walmart [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FknkqT5tHK8 <comment><USER2> I guess this is one way to make a living. Is it sustainable? Is it gratifying? Is it scalable?

The guy is a hustler, I can appreciate that. He works for himself, I can appreciate that.

However if lots of other people try to do the same thing then does all the competition create a situation where lots of people are squabbling over a few crumbs? It looks like its a niche. And its only a matter of time others try to muscle in on his turf.

<comment><USER3> > _Is it sustainable? Is it gratifying? Is it scalable?_

Why does Western Society have a fixation on _only_ doing things that make sense _for the rest of your life_?

Who cares how long it will last. Who cares about _The rest of your life_. Do something that's interesting NOW.

Let him enjoy it for however long he wants. When he doesn't enjoy it, or it doesn't work anymore, he'll find something else to do that he finds interesting. That's great for him! Maybe it's not the life you want, but that's not what we're talking about.

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure what your hostility is for. It's a question of relevance to this forum specifically. Thanks for the downvote.

You railing against "Western Society" strikes me as off base, like you have an axe to grind. It doesn't matter to me if he does it once or for the rest of his life. That not why people post stuff like this to hacker.

However what does matter is this video was shared on HACKER NEWS, probably because of its entrepreneurial based content. Most of the links posted here have some sort of connection to either technology, science and/or entrepreneurship. It's not the latest javascript library, but he is using eBay + hustle to brick and mortar stores to generate revenue.

The question is it's relevance to this forum. The guy is trying to make a business, and exploiting gap between supply and demand. That part is interesting. The reason why it's relevant is "can anyone use this video to recreate a similar business?"

Is this video demonstration of a potential service a sustainable, repeatable and potentially scalable business model for others to emulate on this forum? My humble take on it is NO IT IS NOT.

 _> Who cares how long it will last_

Literally most of the people who come to hacker news. We're not to watch some guy drive 700 miles to 20 Walmarts to buy 100+ monopoly board games. Most of us are interested to see if this can be a real business idea.

Which is why I conceded certain points about the idea. He's working for himself. He's hustling. I don't know if he does this full time or in addition to his regular job. There is something impressive to what he's doing. Making $2500 over the course of a weekend is pretty impressive. And if you could keep making $2500 per weekend doing this kind of thing that would be of interest to me, even if it isn't my thing.

<comment><USER4> _I 'm not sure what your hostility is for._

I would assume because he isn't doing something sustainable or long term so he takes any criticism of that personally?

<comment><USER5> Late reply, but my take is that he wasn't being hostile. He had a genuine question about why that should matter.

And I agree with him. Not everything needs to be sustainable. Not everything needs to be profitable over the long haul. Sometimes getting set up to take advantage of a one-time event (e.g., "Snowcopalypse" T-Shirts) with a short horizon is worth doing and worth studying for future opportunities.

My personal take on what he's saying is "adapt or die."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Most Americans don't know there's a subeconomy in the U.S. where Chinese merchants buy items from retail stores and sell them to customers in China. The successful ones hire people to shop in stores. What do they buy? iPhones, diapers, baby formula, LV purses, lottery tickets...

<comment><USER7> Even cars: there is a huge business of people buying up brand new luxury cars in the US, then immediately putting them on a boat to China. The manufacturers hate it, and try to write sales contracts to prevent it, but it's so lucrative that it constantly attracts new people into the game

<comment><USER8> Why would manufacturers hate it?

<comment><USER9> Alternative to the other explanation: The only reason it would be a grey market activity is because the vehicle is more expensive in the native market.

So Widgets Ltd. is selling widgets for $100 in China, but $30 in the US. Lots of money to be made in the gap.

<comment><USER10> Indeed, I suspect it has to do with manufacturer's wanting control over prices and supply. E.g. a manufacturer thinks they can charge a higher base price in China because they are a luxury foreign brand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For an idea of how this business goes on an average day.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/26/539552579/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/26/539552579/episode-629-buy- low-sell-prime)

<comment><USER12> From the article: > It defies something called the law of one price. That economic principle says that the same item should sell for pretty much the same amount of money everywhere it's available. > Today on the show: We meet the modern middleman and we find out how he makes money doing something that should be economically impossible.

This is a very deliberately sensational way of looking at it. One of the big reasons the one price law works is because there are people who do arbitrage. The first comers to an arbitrage opportunity make a lot of money. Other people come in and try to undercut the first comers and so they make less money and so on. In the long term basically the arbitrage profit tends towards zero.

<comment><USER11> I think the point is more that it's strange that these giant retailers who've gotten to where they are because they are basically experts at selling goods retail are creating these arbitrage opportunities and largely ignoring them. Intuitively, what you'd expect is for the retailers to find a way to close the arbitrage gap. But in the U.S. we have this kind of strange notion of retailers setting prices based on guidance from the wholesaler or producer and then not allowing any price negotiation. These retailers are used to a world in which realizing the resulting arbitrage was not worth anyone's time or money but the internet has changed that and they haven't adapted.

<comment><USER13> My partner makes 'spare' money arbitraging between TK Maxx and ebay in the UK, she follows all the big fashion vloggers on youtube then buys the stuff she thinks will sell based on spotting trends across them, she frequently makes 100% margin and averages >50% (across everything).

She does it because it's fun and she's bored but so far she's _really_ damn good at it.

I find it funny that someone with an advanced degree in finance spends her spare time doing that but it's a hobby and she makes more than I do playing Chess (which is zero) so I can't laugh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This strikes me as wildly unsustainable and something that just can't last, with a big caveat: I thought the exact same thing when people were doing this 20 years ago buying vacuum cleaners at Kmart and flipping them on eBay.

My understanding is that people (like this guy) who are good at this pretty rapidly graduate to doing drop shipping and more online speciality work.

<comment><USER15> In my limited experience with (3) people who do this, they never really scale/graduate. They just seem to have some different kind of hustle going on, often this is seasonal. When watermelons are in season they'll drive to the next state and buy a truck load of watermelons wholesale from a farmer. Then they sell the watermelons on the side of the road. Same thing with pumpkins near Halloween. Same thing with flowers near Valetine's. Sometimes they'll buy a couple cars and flip them. I think they just enjoy constantly doing something a little different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are there penalties to posting goods you don't have and selling them before you have them in-hand? Does Amazon penalize sellers for cancelling orders if they can't be delivered?

<comment><USER17> That's called drop shipping when you list an item you don't have. There's a healthy community of drop shippers in most e-commerce sites.

I'm sure Amazon and other sites do penalize for cancelling orders, so one has to do a cost-benefit analysis if they make a mistake in pricing. E.g. the source increased prices recently but do you want to risk your reputation of your online store?

The risk you're taking on is that you can fulfill the order more cheaply than what the customer bought it for.

<comment><USER18> Amazon has performance targets that sellers should meet. Last time I saw them, the Pre-fulfillment Cancel Rate target is under 2.5% and the Late Shipment Rate is under 4%. (I'm not sure if they're different for different types of sellers on Amazon or if those are blanket targets for everyone, though.) If you end up on the wrong side of those targets, Amazon sends a warning, but you're not immediately suspended. It's unclear to me exactly at what point you do get suspended... I've seen it happen only when one of those rates gets up to 10% or so, but I've also seen it happen when one of those rates just goes about 1% higher than the target, so I suspect there are a lot of factors behind the scene that are considered (by an algorithm) before suspension/loss of selling privileges like negative feedback rates and other data Amazon measures for each seller.

I'm not a dropshipper, btw. Just someone who's been in charge of a book store's online sales (including on Amazon) for a while. Dropshippers actually drive me crazy because they're usually really bad customers. Many of them make lots of demands of the seller like emailing the tracking number separately (even though Amazon emails it automatically), and removing any pricing info from packing slips, or removing my store's name from packing slips. One drop shipper even asked that I put their store's name onto our packing slip and remove my store's name. All these demands that dropshippers have really slow down our order processing, since almost every single other order we get has no special demands.

Additionally, since they're not the end recipient of the shipments, if the end recipient has a question or issue they have to pass it along to us, and they often do so very poorly. They're often rude, frequently muddle the question, and sometimes make additional, outlandish demands, like "my customer thinks it's taking too long. send another book via overnight shipping or I'll leave a negative review!" I try to report as many of the worst offenders as possible to Amazon, but that takes time out of what I should be working on instead, and often Amazon doesn't care because Amazon Support can be almost as bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For some reason our office manager will only order stuff off Amazon which leads to funny scenarios where we'll get 12 pack of soda that was ordered from Amazon but was shipped from Costco with the Amazon sellers name on the billing but our office as the shipping. Down at the local Kroger the 12 pack was probably 15% cheaper...

<comment><USER20> This happened to me with eBay once. Ordered a set of socket wrenches. When the box arrived at my house it had a Sears online recipet inside with my shipping address

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is what /r/flipping is about 'buy low, sell high'. There's nothing new or novel about this, some people make livings doing this sort of thing using FBA and eBay.

Similarly there is /r/churning where you use credit cards and line of credit to extract profit by strategically exploiting promotional offers.

<comment><USER22> Heh, r/flipping _hates_ it when people talk about retail arbitrage opportunities like this. "You're giving away our secrets!"

<comment><USER23> Should I patent, trademark, or copyright "buy low, sell high"? ... decisions, decisions....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I love this part of the video ([https://youtu.be/FknkqT5tHK8?t=57](https://youtu.be/FknkqT5tHK8?t=57)). "Traffic is hades" points camera to traffic moving along nicely. I'd love to live in a place where traffic like that is "bad".

<comment><USER25> It's the secret of living in places like Alabama. I know people who work in tech remote and live in these places making large salaries.

<comment><USER24> I'd think if you work remote, traffic isn't a big concern :)

I worked out of Toronto for about 2 years as a food safety inspector, which meant driving around all day. It was horrible. Traffic is so draining to your moral.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wouldn't it be more effective to become a retailer and buy wholesale? As opposed to wholesale retail retail

<comment><USER27> In this case Monopoly for Millenials is a Walmart exclusive item. So the money is made from people going to Amazon to buy it.

<comment><USER21> I actually made money off of an exclusive back in the GameCube day. They did The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition for the GameCube that had both games released for the NES and Nintendo 64, with the former including revised texts fixing the original mistranslations, a demo of The Wind Waker, and various promotional videos.

It was going for 50-100$ on eBay. The only way to get it was to get a subscription to Nintendo Power during the promotion so... yeah.... I was getting a few dozen Nintendo Power magazines in the mail every month for a year and pocketing 20-70$ per subscription after the sub price and eBay/PayPal fees.

Funny thing was, if people messaged me and just asked how I got the copies I flat out told them "just go get a Nintendo Power subscription".

<comment><USER28> I can't remember how I got a copy of the Collector's Edition, because I don't think I had an NP subscription. Was it a pre-order bonus for Wind Waker as well?

In any case, I found it endlessly amusing when I would go to Gamestop and see used copies of the Collector's Edition marked for sale at $50 or so. Particularly with the giant "NOT FOR RESALE" text on the cover:

[http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110103022630/zelda/i...](http://static4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110103022630/zelda/images/1/14/The_Legend_of_Zelda_- _Collector%27s_Edition_%28North_America%29.png)

<comment><USER21> Apparently there were other ways to get it but I only knew of the NP one

[https://zelda.gamepedia.com/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Collector%2...](https://zelda.gamepedia.com/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Collector%27s_Edition)

>In the United Kingdom, the Collector's Edition was available to GameCube owners who mailed Nintendo proof of purchase of one of several selected GameCube games, including The Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, 1080° Avalanche, Mario Party 5, and Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. Consumers could also send proof of purchase of two titles from the Player's Choice range to receive the game

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I used to do support and marketing for a retail arbitrage app called Profit Bandit.

I used to invite local users out to Grocery Outlet in Portland (bargain grocery store), give them all $50 and see who found the best/most profitable stuff.

Once when testing the app at a Goodwill down the street from the office I found a book we ended up selling for around $100 (paid $3 for it).

</comment><comment><USER30> I got stuck in line at a K-mart during its close out sale with a man that did something similar with Magic cards. He buys the yearly packs, when they're on sale. He removes the valuable cards. Sells them independently for $10+ dollars. Due to sales and extreme sales like the close out, he makes a few grand a year. Nice work if you can get it.

</comment><comment><USER31> Too lazy to watch the video, is that $2500 profit? There is shipping costs, time spent, gas for car, car wear and tear.

<comment><USER32> Yes, this is after he deducted gas, Amazon fees, shipping fees.

<comment><USER33> Folks should really use something like the IRS Standard Mileage Rate (Business) rather than gas, unless they're about to sell the car and it doesn't need anything before they do. In this case, 700 miles is $381.50. Still not bad, considering the order of magnitude difference between such expenses and his profit.

[0] [https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/standard-mileage- rates](https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/standard-mileage-rates)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I wonder how he knew there would be a market for this that would buy it for so much over retail.

<comment> GuB-42 Two possibilities:

Maybe he didn't and it is just luck, classic survivor bias.

Maybe what you see is just the highlight of what is essentially a full time job. I have a friend who exploited arbitrage opportunities, and made a few thousands like this. While it is easy to see the surface, there is a lot going on behind the scenes. He sometimes spent the entire day packaging stuff, most of his travels included visits to potentially interesting shops, he has to deal with shipping problems and dishonest customers, and he had a very good knowledge of the market. And while big wins sometimes happened, most of the money were made through a large number of smaller gains. He enjoyed it when he did that, a bit less now, and he makes more through his day job (nurse), so he stopped doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I am surprised Walmart don't limit how many you can buy. This seems like it is priced to bring people into the store, not make a huge profit for Walmart on its own.

</comment><comment><USER36> I met a band from Australia that bought new equipment in the usa for their tour, shipped it back home, and sold it for a profit when they got back.

</comment><comment><USER37> Slickdeals.net apparently has a huge untapped market to go advertise to...

</comment><comment><USER38> A scalper's gonna scalpe

</comment><comment><USER39> Only one thing comes to mind when I see this video: Roll Damn Tide.

<comment><USER40> RTR ... beat them dawgs tomorrow

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Aviãozinho</comment>


How Worried Should We Be About the Alleged RSA-NSA Scheming? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/12/what-we-really-lost-with-the-rsa-nsa-revelations/

<comment><USER2> Very.</comment>