The good old days? In many ways, yes - <AUTHOR> https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications/the-region/the-good-old-days-in-many-ways-yes <comment><USER2> It just doesn't take that many people to do all the stuff.[1] The automation revolution happened a long time ago.[2] Peak manufacturing employment was in 1979. Agriculture is down to 1.4%. Making stuff (mining, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture) is at 14% and dropping. Those were the classic blue-collar jobs. They're the ones where large numbers of people were employed doing repetitive work under close supervision. Many of those jobs were unionized and paid OK. Even for people with IQ below 100. Not any more.

For a while, "services" employed more people. Then came cheap computing and the Internet. No more file clerks. Much less paper-pushing. Fewer retail salespeople. Fewer bank tellers. Both retail and finance are dropping in headcount.

That's what happened.

[1] [https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major- industry-...](https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry- sector.htm) [2] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MANEMP)

<comment><USER3> > _It just doesn 't take that many people to do all the stuff._

That's impossible. A couples of times in the past when we evolved major new technologies (e.g. industrial revolution) new jobs were created. This means there will _always_ be new jobs, it's like a contract with history.

/s -- but also how many think, taking 2-3 historical cases as some kind of necessary eternal motif.

<comment><USER4> An example of job creation due to automation is the huge increase in the content creation industry. I don't recall the exact figures, but the rate of movie/TV production has increased enormously since the 1970's.

Something I haven't seen written about is that it wasn't that long ago that if you were middle class, you'd have a maid or other servants. I don't know anyone who has a maid. Those jobs haven't been automated, either. There's something else at work.

<comment><USER5> There was an article in The Atlantic a few years ago about the decline of domestic help, but I think this old NY Times article captures the nuance of the change better. In many ways there is still domestic help, but it is now more outsourced, and on demand.

[https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/27/weekinreview/the- nation-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/27/weekinreview/the-nation-the- servant-class-is-at-the-counter.html)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/decline...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/decline- domestic-help-maid/406798/)

<comment><USER6> Solid articles, these could be reposted to HN and stand alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Less-educated Americans born in the 1960s fare much worse than those born 20 years earlier"

One interesting thing worth watching for here is selection bias. If the average education level increased during this 20 year period, then we aren't comparing similar cohorts when we select for a particular level of education at the two different times.

<comment><USER8> Correct: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational- attai...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment- of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/)

<comment><USER9> But graduation rates are meaningless because they are easily gamed. Compare average SAT scores from 1970's to today and the trend is _downward_.

Graduation rates are easy to boost: Graduate bad, failing students. SAT scores are not so hard to fake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > In the abstract, you get this statement: "The drop in wages depressed the > labor supply of men and increased that of women, especially in married > couples."

Seems to get cause and effect backwards. Isn't it more likely that an increase in labor supply (women entering the workforce) had, simply by the laws of supply and demand, decreased wages?[1] [1] [https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/facts/women_lf.htm#one](https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/facts/women_lf.htm#one)

The paper is full of complicated-looking economic models and nice graphs-- but if you don't get the basic assumptions right it's hard to trust the fancy models.

<comment><USER11> These things are hard to think about.

A new worker (or 50 million new female workers) does on one end increase the supply of labor, which should lower the price (wages) of it, but s/he also starts spending an income, which increases general demand in the economy and acts to push up wages.

It's not obvious what the net effect is. Economists probably have a (or several :) well thought out and validated answers to this, but my gut feel is that it all evens out.

<comment><USER12> I think it's necessary to look at it more in more detail. What did women stop doing to make time for work? What products and services had higher demand and which ones did not? In particular were they labor intensive goods or resource intensive goods or even zero sum goods?

I don't have the answers to these questions unfortunately.

<comment><USER13> Elizabeth Warren did a lot of research on the topic before going into politics. The bulk of the income went towards transportation, childcare, housing and medical care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It has become impossible to me to read articles on this topic that don't make clear if their "stagnant wages" are corrected for the health care benefits eating up all potential increases for workers who are at the bottom end of the compensation range. Ever since this effect was explained on econtalk ([https://www.econtalk.org/mark-warshawsky-on-compensation- hea...](https://www.econtalk.org/mark-warshawsky-on-compensation-health-care- costs-and-inequality/)) I'm convinced that the US health care system is the #1 problem that needs fixing.

<comment><USER15> From the abstract:

 _Welfare losses, measured as a one-time asset compensation, are 12.5%, 8%, and 7.2% of the present discounted value of earnings for single men, couples, and single women, respectively. Lower wages explain 47-58% of these losses, shorter life expectancies 25-34%, and higher medical expenses account for the rest._

<comment><USER14> I'm still not clear if higher medical expenses refers to expenses that were directly paid by the worker or also accounts for costs the employer paid as part of the total compensation package but that never passed through the hands of the worker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The US emerged from World War II the global superpower while much of the rest of the world was literally decimated and turned to ruins. We built an incredible industrial and commercial base to support and profit from the war. This overlapped with (and drove) major leaps forward in technology that the US was uniquely positioned to take advantage of.

The "good old days" did exist but they were an extreme anomaly following the largest war in human history. I think people have a hard time realizing this because the mores and culture from that time period were encoded, broadcast and digested by the rest of the world. We still live orbiting around 20th century mass media cultural concepts.

<comment><USER17> > We built an incredible industrial and commercial base to support and profit > from the war.

Doesn't this conflict with the teachings of free trade? That other countries growing their industries and rebuilding themselves left the US worse off (if that is the reason)? If you buy that logic, then shouldn't you be very worried about moving production abroad?

<comment><USER16> Yes, globalization would be one of the main reasons the "good old days" are no longer achievable. Lifestyle is being globally normalized.

Note I keep putting "good" in quotes as a reference to the term. I'm not making a value judgement.

<comment><USER18> globalisation isn't a zero sum game. Rise of industry in developing nations didn't mean that some static output shifted around. Only a relatively small percentage (about 15% or so according to most research) of job loss is attributable to globalisation, and it isn't the jobs that were responsible for the 'good old times', but rather the very worst, environmentally damaging manufacturing.

Gains in productivity and corresponding automation account for the lion's share of job loss.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term- jobs...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/upshot/the-long-term-jobs-killer- is-not-china-its-automation.html)

<comment><USER19> Globalization might be negative sum, when accounting for the lower marginal utility of monetary wealth captured by a few super wealthy capital owners instead of the masses of laborers

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> _Deep welfare losses, along with effects on labor supply, health care spending, and asset accumulation indicate that this large population segment has not enjoyed the fruits of broad economic health._

It feels we need to do a better job quantifying this problem before we come up with a solution. For example (1) how much money would it take to fix health care? (2) how much money would it take to fix welfare? (3) what is the impact of low savings rate on people's economic condition. For example appearance of credit cards coincides with the timeline in this article (4) How has immigration impacted unskilled workers? (5) Does UBI work? (6) How is Europe doing it? (7) Is Europe really as successful at dealing with these issues as everyone seems to claim?

<comment><USER21> regarding (7), I am very interested in reading a nonpartisan take on the relationship between US defense spending and welfare spending in western europe. if it weren't for the current defensive arrangement with the US, would europe spend more on defense? if so, would it still spend the same on social services? do we americans overestimate our contribution to the defensive posture of the west?

<comment><USER22> I think until France 4+ subs with atomics missils onboard are found and destroyed, EU is pretty safe from conquering even without the US.

<comment><USER23> Nukes only protect from catastrophe (if others think that your government is sane) because they're essentially a "fuck you, we all lose" button. If you reply to something with nukes, you get nuked too.

What this means in practice is that something like "Russia assassinated the leaders of France + Germany and conquered Poland in the ensuing chaos" _isn 't enough of a justification for France to use nukes_. That's because the payoff matrix looks something like this:

              peace * conventional war * nuclear war
      France     10 *                5 * -10,000,000
      Russia      5 *               10 * -10,000,000

Sane governments don't choose to move their payoff from 5 to -10,000,000.

Now, there are exceptions here! One is insane government leaders. It takes a special kind of person to light the world on fire because someone took their toy, but... no one takes that guy's toy. And so since they can credibly rule out column #2 above, they never leave column #1. The other exception then is when a sane government credibly precommits to the use of nuclear weapons in some situation. But it's rather hard for a liberal democracy to do this, and if France said that they'd kill Russia with nukes (and thus indirectly themselves, Poland, and everyone else) in response to Poland being invaded - well, I don't think I'd believe in their ability to follow through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I believe people in the earlier cohort were more likely to die as children as child mortality was higher in the past. If so, that could apply a selection bias to the age 66 and up subset of this cohort, since those who survive their childhood could tend to have a natural proclivity to be healthier into old-age than those who don't.

Moreover, people became more educated over that 20 year timespan, so comparing people of equal absolute educational attainment across the two periods could be a case of comparing a higher socioeconomic group to a lower one.

</comment><comment><USER25> If they think it's gotten bad from the 1940 cohort to 1960, wait until they look at the 1980 cohort. Anecdotally, among my friends and family without a college degree, the situation is dire indeed.

</comment><comment><USER26> This essay suggests that the peak years for the USA standard of living were in the mid-20th Century, and those born before World War II saw the greatest benefits.

There will eventually be political consequences for the erosion of the USA standard of living. The Economist magazine had an article, which was discussed here on Hacker News, with the title "The link between polygamy and war" to which I responded:

" _This suggests that political stability depends on young men being able to pursue their romantic dreams. This would apply in any country, not just African countries. In nations in the West, an important limiting factor is the ability to get one's own apartment. That is, the ratio of average male wage to average rent. In the USA, the happiest year for this ratio was 1958, when people were spending 22% of their income on rent, on average. Not by coincidence, this was the peak year of the Baby Boom. In some sense, it was the best year in history to be a young white male in the USA. It was the year when it was easiest for an 18 year old male to get out of high school, get their own apartment, marry their high school sweetheart, and start a family. And of course, young people did this in huge numbers, which is why 1958 remains the peak year for teenage pregnancy in the USA._ "

More here:

[http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/do-men-become- warlike...](http://www.smashcompany.com/philosophy/do-men-become-warlike-if- they-do-not-have-women)

<comment><USER16> That would go along with the article from yesterday saying that fewer young men in the US are having sex than ever before:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19524642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19524642)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Most people look at economies as an extension of supply-demand curves in a Newtonian-esque model where one ball hits the next, transfers momentum (elastically or otherwise) and so forth. Everything is down to a great chain of causality that creates a nexus of forces. Consequently, "fixing" things in this model means more of Force X over Y. Or, applying Lever A to Spot Z to induce Force P. The force or lever can be regulations, deregulation, taxation, tax cuts, interest rate changes, jailing bankers... And people may come at it from different ideologies, but the Newtonian mental model remains. Everyone repeats ad infinitum if only we quantized and applied X or Y then clearly such and such outcome will occur. And this technique very rarely works out.

It might help us stave off a great amount of unrest if we shift this frame of reference. A new perspective and a new way of doing things where we view our economies as ecosystems or networks might clarify why these changes are occurring. For example, we can look at excessive economic inequality and understand why it is bad by looking at natural ecosystems and how they are a closed loop.

For e.g. Consumers are like plankton. They are the injection of biomass (money) into the system that ensures money changes hands when they buy goods and services. A single entity, no matter how rich, cannot provide equivalent mass to the greater ecosystem than a large set of consumers. Or, in other words, a billionaire requires only so many pairs of sunglasses and Netflix subscriptions. Ergo, a broad base of wealth where people can afford the products around them is essential for a capitalistic ecosystem to function, as these plankton keep feeding entities higher up in the food chain through an accumulation effect.

For whatever reason, just like we have decimated our natural environment, we have also decimated our economic ecosystem. The number of entities with high purchasing power is rapidly decreasing, and this signals a significant problem for the future of the ecosystem. And it also suggests how automation can end up eating itself economically unless we institute measures - artificial or otherwise - that inject capital back into the building blocks of the economy.

I suspect that as computing gets better, we will eventually create models that will make the current economic debates and models we have obsolete. Our arguments over taxation, immigration, regulation, reform etc. will seem quite quaint to people in the future if we manage to make this transition and if we can help policymakers and thinking individuals see economies in real-time, and simulate outcomes of individual, highly variable, irrational agents at unprecedented scales.

But we're not there yet. But we could be. We can fix this. And we will. I am sure of that because brilliant people are working on this problem and eventually, we'll get it right.

I hold out hope for a better future no matter how bad this news gets and I remember that we're in a state of flux and things always appear darker in these times.

</comment><comment><USER28> But whenever people talk about the 'good old days' they're racist, right? /s

It amazes me how much people will vote against their own self-interest. Also, something a lot of the SV and educated crowd don't understand, but immigration disproportionately affects uneducated workers by dramatically increasing the supply of labour with workers willing to work for low wages (they are partaking in wage arbitrage vs. their home country). Lots of industries that are dominated by immigrants and illegal migrants today used to offer far better income and living conditions 2 generations ago.

If people truly cared about the plight of the uneducated working class, there'd be taxes on wealth, incentives against rentiers, far higher minimum wages (to discourage wage arbitrage by immigrants from poorer countries) and maybe even basic income. Or a limit on the supply of labour (ie. slow down immigration) and tariffs to combat outsourcing. The first is a better outcome IMO, but the second is a perfectly rational reaction.

But hey, bringing up actual economic effects of social policy is racist and bigoted, right? That's why the current bourgeoisie doesn't understand movements like Brexit, populism, etc...

Edit - for the record, I like left-wing solutions better. I very much admire and agree with economists like Piketty. But most left-wing parties in the west have really dropped the ball. They're beholden to the same rich donors, and gloss over economic policy by championing social justice instead.

Edit 2 - some back up for my assertions: [https://www.nber.org/papers/w3761](https://www.nber.org/papers/w3761)

<comment><USER29> "immigration disproportionately affects uneducated workers by dramatically increasing the supply of labour"

Can you back these arguments with some evidence? Otherwise they are just empty claims.

<comment><USER30> "Otherwise they are just empty claims."

No, it's basic economics actually.

All other things equal, if you increase the supply of labour, you're going to see lower prices.

Of course, the economy is not 'all things equal' i.e. more bodies means more consumers etc. but the logic is fairly sound.

In Northern Alberta, for the Oil sands, the lingo they use to push for more migrants is 'labour input costs': "We're seeing risks due to labour input costs" etc.. It's a slightly extreme case given the isolation up there but it's real.

So in the 'long run' things might work better out but the short run economics are pretty straightforward.

<comment><USER29> How are we accommodating growth of the economy in this argument? Or even growth in a particular industry with a high demand for labor?

<comment><USER30> That's 'long run' economics. So yes, as soon as you get outside the short run it gets hard to calculate.

But it's really hard to argue in any circumstance that 'more workers = higher wages' because wages will be a function of available labour.

The 'rub' in the data really is the fact it doesn't take into consideration the black market. Wages paid under the table are 100% part of the real economy, and those are wages, but they generally don't go into the equations.

Imagine if the 'average us wage' were calculated with a few million extra people earning below minimum and with zero benefits?

When there is full employment though, and not tons of undocumented workers, one could argue that economic expansion could pick up the slack, surely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm suspicious. When I see a large chart titled "Life expectancy at age 66" it sets off all kinds of alarm bells.

Why 66? Why not 50 or 60 or 70? What was special about 66 that it was chosen, and why wasn't it explained?

<comment><USER32> Similarly, mass shootings per year compared by country where mass shooting is defined as 4 people getting shot.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Getting started with automated trading? - <AUTHOR>

I want to get into automated trading (individually) to validate a few ideas about markets. I read Larry Harris' book Trading and Exchanges and am confident that I could write a computer program that trades on my behalf. Now I have a whole bunch of technical questions:
1) Which platform should I use for trading? I need a solution that allows me to backtest my algorithms and executes trades quickly. Ideally I'd not have to install anything and I'd like to write trading strategies in whatever programming language I like. A platform with an API sounds best.
2) What are other features to consider when choosing a platform?
3) Is there any way to get into high-frequency trading as an individual investor? How fast can a trade be executed using any automated trading platform?
4) Are there any good communities around this topic?
5) Is there anything else I should know? <comment><USER2> Forget HFT by yourself, at least until you've done some things and learned what it really requires. The barriers to entry are multiple and substantial, and you can't figure out how to eliminate one unless you're really good with the others.

Like any substantial / difficult / well-rewarded pursuit, plan on this taking 12+ months to be even minimally viable.

Minimum viable product = Interactive Brokers account, automated via one of their API wrappers, with custom logic. This will get you to where you can modify orders ~ 10x per second, which is often enough that you're going to learn so much you don't even know what the questions are yet....

If you do all that and want to press forward, usually the next correct step (again assuming you're writing ALL the logic, risk handling, etc.) is something like Lime.

"backtest my algorithms"... historical data isn't free, nor is any decent source of it

"execute trades quickly"... what's the definition of quickly? there are systems currently active that can process an execution and have a response on the wire in less than 25us... that's 25 millionths of a second for wire-to- wire processing...

Realize this: you are expressing a desire to play one of the most difficult games on the planet. In this game you do not get to choose your opponents. However, you can know that it's very, very unlikely that you know or can do anything they don't or can't.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'm willing to invest well over 12 months into this. If it is one of the most difficult games to play, then I want to play it. Perhaps you can't do anything nobody else is doing, but I'll be damned if you can't do it better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You are not nearly the only one trying this - I wouldn't recommend it. You'll also need a big chunk of money to get started - HFT (which is a subset of automated trading) relies on low latency, and therefore you can't just use any old hosting. You'll also want to write it in a language with low and predictable latency (usually C++).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Can you elaborate on why you wouldn't recommend it?

<comment><USER3> brownegg has a good response, but I'll also point out that you're not the only one trying to start such a business, and you're more-or-less chasing the same opportunities as everyone else. There's a lot of money to be made, and thus a lot of highly-qualified people working on this. And you _need_ to be better than them to make money.

Secondly, you'll need a lot of money to trade with.

Finally, you're asking rather basic questions - you have a _lot_ to learn, and asking for help (on HN or elsewhere) won't get you far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Check this forum [http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumi...](http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=48)</comment>


Tesla Semi - <AUTHOR> https://www.tesla.com/semi/ <comment><USER4> Ok as a mechanic a few million questions:

* What happens when a wheel seal goes? Do I have to remove all that ridiculous plastic on #2,3 axels??

* What happens when a tire blows? Is it going to destroy all that plastic and take out a few more tires in the process?

* Why all the glass? I've spend entire days replacing windshields for a 12 or so truck shop which generally come in two (drivers and passengers), the Tesla semi would require a crane and expensive replacements.

* Why is there no bumper or frame attachment points? Bumpers save the truck from damage, no one wants to buy $xxxxx front end, lights, etc when a deer in the bushes jumps into the middle of the road.

Honestly from my point of view it seems Tesla tried to apply personal EV to a semi. Did they do any research from tractor shops or mechanics? There is a HUGE reason tractor/trailers are easy to service.

<comment><USER5> He states that they have spent a lot of time talking to truckers and truck companies. I would guess they believe that with an electric drive train repairs and maintenance will be an order of magnitude lower (not sure how that works for tires and wheels). Body damage should also be much lower with automatic breaking and other features of enhanced autopilot. As Musk said, broken glass is a big cost for trucking as you can drive with a broken windshield. They think they have a super glass that is "nuclear blast" proof.

<comment><USER6> Over the last centuries there were a number of truck and bus manufacturers who tried the single/middle seat design. It was never a seller for any of those.

If you take someone with you, you don't want to sit him/her to sit behind you. You want them to sit next to you. If you are on the road in the city, you have often colleagues with you, like in a moving company and alike. Such trucks are used in construction work where things damage easily because someone else crashes in your truck. No assistant in your truck will prevent that.

Honestly, it seems they may have talked to some friends or their delivery companies, but not with companies from the industry.

<comment><USER7> Could it be that this semi just isn't meant for those in-city hauls, but more for the longer-range highway hauls?

<comment><USER8> I would say no because they currently have no sleeper cabin in their design

<comment><USER9> And I don't see where they can hang the traditional playboy calendar.

<comment><USER10> On one of those big screens of course, even that calendar has to go with the times after all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anyone else find it odd they don't talk about the battery?

500 miles of range at 2kwh a mile is a 1000kwh battery which is 10 model S batteries.

Model S battery weighs 1,200 lbs lets assume they somehow improved on that by 20-30% so this is a 10,000 lb battery. Not sure how much the motors weigh, the Tesla motor and inverter are about 350lbs so lets say another 1000lbs.

A Diesel engine, transmission and fuel for 500 miles is about 5,000 lbs.

So I guess they made up 6,000 lbs in lightwieght materials? Or does it have less carry capacity since the trucks can't weigh more than 80k total?

Then there is the cost of the battery. Tesla is currently saying thier cost are below $190/kwh. At $180 that battery is $180,000 dollars cost! They must be counting on the Gigafactory getting it down to $100 kwh, still $100k cost just for the battery. The battery cost is as much as a new Semi's price.

The Megacharger is 400 miles in 30 minutes, that would be a 1.6 megawatt charger. They have to be built out across the country.

I am pretty impressed, I honestly didn't think they would do a megawatt battery. 500 miles is what you need minimum for "long haul" or a solid days driving even though most diesel semis have 1000 mile+ ranges.

Just not sure how the economics work out, but I hope it does.

<comment><USER12> If you take the Model S and scale it up then people have said the battery is half the cost of the car, and therefore the battery alone is roughly the cost of a normal car. I don't think it would be suprising if the same is true for the semi.

There's at least one rural delivery man who bought a Tesla Model S and paid for it by using the mileage payments he gets for his job. So as long as your route fits, the same kind of high up front cost being amortised over time applies. The more miles you drive the better the economics works due to lower fuel/maintenance costs.

Non-Tesla companies are making pretty much the same pitch in regards to battery busses, again targetting fleet managers who have the spreadsheets in place already to plan and manage this kind of expenditure.

<comment><USER11> Urban buses are very different and a more obvious target. Stop and go slower avg speed regular short routes with a home base to charge.

Much smaller batteries and taking advantage of regenerative braking.

It is an obvious use case for batteries right now.

<comment><USER13> How effective is regenerative breaking?

<comment><USER14> Oddly good.

My commute is ~25 miles one way. In my Leaf, going 65+ mph, I usually burn 25-35 miles off the charge. If I'm in stop-and-go traffic half the way I usually burn 10-15 miles for the same trip.

I've taken quite a few trips where I arrived at my destination with the same amount of battery as when I left. I've yet to arrive with more charge but maybe one day...

<comment><USER15> That's probably due more to the aerodynamic drag of doing >65mph than it is the regen braking in stop-and-go traffic. Mileage efficiency takes a big drop in our Leaf above 60mph.

EDIT: as a side note, efficiency takes a big drop in your ICE vehicle, too, I just notice it more in the Leaf with its gee-whiz telemetry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's bizarre that the Semi has way less attention than the Roadster on HN.

The Roadster is a $250k car for people with money to burn. It doesn't seem to drastically change the equation from a Rimac Concept One with six-year newer battery and motor tech and savings from volume and automation. The Roadster is the shiny thing that sells less sexy vehicles.

The Semi has the potential to change an entire industry if executed right. They don't need to be perfect if the cost savings are real and reliability is high. We'll see if they get practical details correct and whether production models arrive within 2-3 years of target-- a common Tesla worry. But I feel this has more margin potential than the Model 3 at this stage in Tesla's development.

<comment><USER17> It may possibly be because the Roadster was a surprise reveal, while the Semi was expected to arrive this year anyways.

Regardless, I am really looking forward to seeing the Semi's on Highways, although I believe that a main roadblock to it will be the lack of Tesla charging stations across the country. Semi trucks drive throughout the US on all major highways, and they have to coordinate their routes according to where the Weighing stations are in each state. Having to add super-charging stations to their routes will certainly complicate their routes, so it should be a bigger priority for Tesla to address those first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Unlike their cars, if they want to be successful they will need to release factory service manuals and sell parts to repair them. It's not going to be acceptable to send it to some far away service center to be repaired, at least for small outfits that heavily use all their equipment. When a critical piece of equipment is down, the mechanic is going to be working through the night hacking it together, possibly waiting on parts that are being overnighted. Diesel mechanics tend to be ridiculously intelligent and very resourceful.

<comment><USER19> I have read the _same_ comment (slightly modified) on HN since telsa announced their first vehicle.

Tell me, have you actually worked on a new model truck? Because the days of a service manual and a backyard shed are over

<comment><USER20> Tesla will be selling into a very complicated industry. You think enterprise sales of software are hard, just wait.

Tesla say their system includes all the functions necessary. I haven't seen a list but I doubt it. Even if they do it will literally take enterprise integration projects to hook them up to the largely bespoke systems used by existing trucking company backends.

(E.g. 20 year old ADP systems)

<comment> ni-hil I don't know if the timing is right, but I think what you have to understand here is that all of this is the beginning of the end for the trucking company as you know it.

<comment><USER20> Sure, but that end was coming before Tesla was a brand name. The trucking industry is surprisingly innovative, despite overall conservative practices.

Go look at Volvo concept trucks over the last few years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> EU will like these huge windshields, because of the pedestrian safety.

"Contrary to passenger cars, there are currently no direct vision requirements for trucks. Direct vision – what you can see with your own eyes – has a number of benefits compared to indirect vision (mirrors and camera's). To measure direct vision the Commission should use a standardised methodology."

Very nice summary on truck blindspots : [https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publicat...](https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publications/2016_07_Trucks_direct_vision_briefing_FINAL_0.pdf)

<comment><USER22> Huge windshields are good for pedestrian safety, enhanced autopilot with every truck sold is fantastic for pedestrian safety.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm a product manager at a telematics company. I've talked to a lot of folks in the long haul trucking space, from drivers to back office folks to service managers. I'll be surprised if this truck catches on. The trucking industry has a huge urge to do everything themselves, all the big guys have full service garages in their many yards across the country. This truck seems essentially unserviceable by anyone other than Tesla, which will be a showstopper for many of the big guys at least for a while.

I will say that I'm impressed by their charging numbers if they can hit them though. Fuel is a huge concern for carriers, they reroute to save a cent on the gallon constantly. Getting enough super chargers in place will be key for these things.

Also, as a side thought: they could have had a much more impactful reveal by having one of the big carrier's trailers hitched to that thing. Makes me wonder how much they even went and talked to their potential customers, especially drivers, who are very...particular...about their machines.

<comment><USER24> This sort of response REEKS of near sightedness.

"The big guys won't go for it. Therefore, it won't succeed". That's a recipe for somebody who isn't a "big guy" to start their business literally this instant, and outcompete the "big guys" in five years because they were able to throw off the shackles of tradition and learn from the past _as well as_ embracing current technology.

<comment><USER25> The harsh truth is that most times it _does_ work out for the "big guys".

5 years is a lot of time for the "big guy"-compliant suppliers like Daimler to catch up (I can't personally evaluate if there is even a lot of catching up to do, as Tesla tries to present). Especially in low-margin industries like transportation that are also highly dependent on overall market strength, the odds are stacked very much in favor of big players that are able to position themselves for slow and stable growth. Close-to-worst scenario for the big guys is that a new player gains a significant market share and they have to purchase them for a big premium.

It also seems that you underestimate the willingness to embrace new technologies in the trucking industry, which they have ingrained to survive in a low-margin industry. They won't like it not because it is any kind of innovation, but because they would be giving away significant control. The big guys are so resilient and successful because they try to have a hold of the supply-chain as much as possible, to be more independent of outside forces, which is exactly the same game Tesla (and Apple, etc.) are playing with their manufacturing partners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've been making the point that fuel duty and car taxes (if your country has them) need to be removed and road pricing brought in.

Price per litre of diesel in the USA is about $0.75 vs $1.64 in the UK. Given that Tesla stated that the truck would pay for itself within 2 years ($200,000 in diesel savings), we're talking 11 months in the UK.

The implication is that eHGVs will radically reduce the tax revenue of countries that have focused on fuel duty creating a significant problem for road maintenance.

Dynamic road pricing, based not only on time of day, but also vehicle type, is probably the only way forward.

<comment><USER27> >Dynamic road pricing, based not only on time of day, but also vehicle type, is probably the only way forward.

Wouldn't want to let poor people with inflexible work hours go un-screwed... /s

I don't know why everyone sees reduced tax revenue as a problems. Less money to spend means more critical evaluation of how it gets spent.

<comment><USER28> Like what happened after every American "big tax cut". Reduction in income instantly exposed massive waste in government, and the tax cuts were found to be deficit-neutral! /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can someone with more experience in the field talk about the pricing of the Tesla semi relative to other semis? Musk said it was cheaper to operate from day one, is that not amortizing purchase price into each mile? Seems a little too good to be true.

<comment><USER30> I assume they are amortizing costs since a quick google search says new price semi's cost 80,000-150,000

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I like Elon Musk's presentation. It is nothing like Steve Jobs or any other CEO presentation. It seems like an enthusiast telling other the features and how cool it is. Also enjoyed the part that he told the audience to break the barriers and come and see it.

</comment><comment><USER32> It seems like it will require a $5000 deposit (with a $50,000 "full deposit") and the truck will cost between $200,000 and $250,000, according to the page source.

<comment><USER33> Well shoot, if they can deliver full self driving capabilities, can I just buy one of these to live in instead of a house, cruising the freeways endlessly?

<comment><USER34> Top of the line Winnebagos are $500k. You might be on to something: [https://winnebagoind.com/products/class-a- diesel/2017/grand-...](https://winnebagoind.com/products/class-a- diesel/2017/grand-tour/overview)

Someone pair up with a tiny house company or a prefab design/build architecture company and start making some housing trailers for Tesla Semis.

<comment><USER35> I Googled it and it is possible.

The easiest way is to use AAA who will handle all the DMV work for the conversion of title from commercial vehicle to something else.

So who is in on this? If that is the price this will work well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm really curious if it comes with big differences compared to modern trucks (except for being all-electric).

I also wonder why they try to push multiple models and niches when they can't even build enough Model 3s as they had expected.

<comment><USER30> They have always known that the first few months of production were going to be "production hell" for the model 3. While the model 3 production has been worse than they hoped for (elon musk always underestimates timelines so if you know how his companies normally operate, it's normal) but a 3 month delay for a massive hardware engineering project is not end of the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder how does Frozen Container works with this? I would be a huge drain to battery.

<comment><USER37> Are those normally run off of the prime mover's engine? I'd never even thought about that.

<comment><USER38> Every refrigerated container I've seen has its own cooling unit and does not use the trucks power.

<comment><USER39> I've always wondered about this. Do they have their own fuel tank and engine to run the compressor for refrigeration?

<comment><USER40> Yes.

And they have electrical hook up point for times when they are stationary. If you think it through, the time a refridgerated container spends actually connected to the truck is not all that big. It will spend more time in a port or on a ship, or even stationary at the departure point or destination.

All of the reefers I've seen have electrical hookups to power them when on ship/land and they have their own diesel powered generators to power them whilst attached to a truck.

There a a couple main reasons they have the diesel powered generator whilst attached to the truck:

1\. Efficiency of the generator (truck companies don't want to spend more on fuel)

2\. The truck is often stopped with the engine off (rest periods etc)

So in the short term attaching a refridgerated container to a Tesla semi wouldn't need and change in operation. In the longer term I guess it's possible that these containers will replace generators with battery pack to remove that emmission source, but they're likely to still be built into the container for the same reason outline above.

<comment><USER41> Could that eventual hvac trailer take regen power from the semi, given the extra weight.

It might be the case where battery in trailer makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> "The quickest acceleration—from zero to 60 mph in 20 seconds, fully loaded."

 _sound of cargo falling over_ :P

But serious question: how important is acceleration for trucks?

<comment><USER43> Merging into freeways is always a problem and a hazard to everyone involved. Quick acceleration makes highway safer. More pulling power also means less slow trucks on grades and less jams around them.

It is of course irrelevant for the bright future where are no human drivers.

<comment><USER44> For quantifying discrete objects, you should use "fewer", not "less". "Less" is used for aggregates, continuous media, and numeric values. So, "fewer people", but "less water".

<comment><USER45> You needn't do this. Some random bloke thought it'd be a good idea years ago, wrote it down in a book. A certain type of pedant says to themselves, oh somebody wrote it down in a book - that's the rule them. Nope.

You can't use fewer in some places, but the insistence that if you can use it then you must is an zombie rule. If "less" sounds right it's fine.

<comment><USER44> Thanks for that, but it doesn't sound right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> There is also issue of highway funds. Tax on fuel goes into roads maintanence. There is no current mechanism in US to tax electric vehicles. I wonder if Tesla culculated non-yet-existing taxes into operational casts.

</comment><comment><USER46> He mentions that the mega chargers will all be solar powered. I don't know how this will be possible as the user base grows. The amount of energy needed for even a small fleet will be huge.

<comment><USER47> In the year to 2017-Aug, total US solar generation was 72.1 TWh, amounting to 1.80% of total US electricity (predicted to reach 5% by 2022; in 2016 US solar capacity almost doubled from the year before).

Tesla semi consumption: < 2 kWh/mi

One charge: 500 miles => < 1 MWh

There are about 2 million semi trucks in the US (tractor trailers). Assume that each semi fully charges once a day, 300 days a year.

The conversion of all of the country's semis to Tesla vehicles powered with solar generation requires under 600 TWh a year, eight times current US solar level; still only 15% of current total US electricity generation. Likely within 10 years, or sooner.

<comment><USER48> There's a lot of surface area on top of a trailer, just saying.

<comment><USER49> 30 square meters, laying flat. So maybe 3kW. While the engines need more like 100kW.

You can't effectively power any vehicle with 15% efficient solar panels.

<comment><USER50> One note, your second claim is not entirely true - while land vehicles are a ways from being feasible to power with photovoltaics (although I would have to do the math for trains, which may be close), we already have primarily [1] and exclusively [2] solar-powered aircraft.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse#Solar_Impulse_2_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse#Solar_Impulse_2_.28HB- SIB.29)

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

<comment><USER49> Those aircraft limp along at a tenth the speed of a typical commercial flight. That's the main reason I said "effectively". I mean, there are useless pure- solar cars too.

Trains might be closer but when single locomotives are measured in megawatts I'm not very confident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Does anyone with some technical knowledge of batteries and solar panels know whether it would be possible to put solar panels on top of the trailer and charge the battery that way?

<comment><USER52> Here's a discussion I found on the subject: [https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/4h7gd1/solar_panels_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/4h7gd1/solar_panels_on_18_wheelers_or_large_trucks/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> WTF? It's just a countdown and a place to enter an email. Why would I want to give my email to Tesla without having any idea what this is about?

<comment><AUTHOR> _" It can transform into a robot, fight aliens and make one hell of a latte"_

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/930875739397791744](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/930875739397791744)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> The page source seems to include all prices, and links to at least one pdf with details on semi reservation.

<comment><USER54> "formattedDeposit" : "$1,000", "hamsterDeposit" : "$5,000", "hamsterFullDeposit": "$50,000", "hamsterTotal1" : "$200,000", "hamsterTotal2" : "$250,000",

Is the listed US prices

<comment><USER55> Curious what "hamster" means in this context.

<comment><USER56> Instead of batteries, semi is powered by several hamsters on wheels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Is a center seating position common for truck drivers?

It looks _amazing_ , but it is different enough from my normal consumer driving experience as to make the entire product a non-starter if it were in a consumer car. I've developed decades of training and muscle memory sitting on the left side of the car.

I wonder if there will be a measurable impact on accident rates.

<comment><USER58> Mclaren is a consumer car with a center seat:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=mclaren+center+seat&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=mclaren+center+seat&tbm=isch)

<comment><USER59> It was, actually, because the McLaren F1 you are referring to was produced until 1998. Also those cars are changing hands for well over 10 million USD nowadays, so I'd hardly call is a 'consumer' car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> :/ The centre driving location, not sure if that is a terrible idea for pedestrian and bicycle safety. Or the opposite as closer to the other side. Guess time will tell if a lot gets squashed against fences like bikers often do in London.

<comment><USER17> Also don't like that there aren't passenger seats, or at least they don't show in the interior pictures.

<comment><USER61> On a YouTube stream we were watching, I saw at least one fold down passenger seat in the truck cabin. Not sure how comfortable it would be, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> What's the axle pressure compared to traditional semis?

Semis are going to be less and less popular in the EU when more countries add fees for distance driven which is proportional to wear, which is twice for a semi compared to a non-semi.

</comment><comment><USER63> Even if they sell 5 of them it will be a success I think.

Tesla will gather a lot of (electric) truck data no one has. And at the time countries decide to ban polluting trucks Tesla will release an upgraded model.

</comment><comment><USER64> they should have used this line: "it's a beauty and a beast"

<comment><USER65> If you're not in marketing you need to be!

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Is the next release a bus ?

<comment><USER17> Doubt it. Busses are most often used by local governments than by businesses, and most cities are less likely to spend that much money on a more expensive form of transportation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> So we've had the Model 'S', 'E' (or '3') and 'X', and now the 'Semi'?

</comment><comment><USER68> One downside to the centre driving position - what about if you want to take a companion with you on the road?

<comment><USER69> There's a jump seat behind and to the right of the driver.

Large agricultural vehicles have always had a central driving position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I want to buy a Tesla Semi and convert it to a land yacht.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's got a 500 mile range, which is pretty decent, compared to the rumored 300 mile range.

<comment><USER55> It shows both on the product page. 300 standard, the 500 is an extra cost option: [https://www.tesla.com/semi/?new](https://www.tesla.com/semi/?new)

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I hope Tesla builds the next gen USPS delivery trucks to replace all of those loud little trucks that sound like a space shuttle launch between each mailbox.

<comment><USER72> Germany's biggest postal service, the Deutsche Post (ex state monopolist) searched for an electric delivery van and couldn't find one. So they bought a startup and developed their own:

* [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-24/even-germ...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-24/even-germany-s-post-office-is-building-an-electric-car)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> How does the mileage and recharge time compare to a traditional semi-truck? And are there enough charging stations along trucking routes?

<comment><USER12> In the presentation they suggest they are targetting customers who can get from A-B in one charge, and then charge while they are unloading/reloading the truck. Those customers actually save time on fueling.

<comment><USER74> Otherwise he states 400 miles charge in 30 minutes. So with assumed breaks every 5-6 hours for food and bathroom, and with apparently legal requirements for drivers to take breaks - it seems like it won't be an issue (so long as there are charging stations at enough locations).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I'll be really curious about how this pans out. It seems like they vastly over-engineered it, but maybe I'm wrong.

<comment><USER76> They need a huge battery to make long-haul feasible (both from a range standpoint and a charging speed standpoint) and to make the battery last longer even on short trips.

And you have less resistive losses if you use multiple motors (or, say, one large motor) than one motor (or a small motor) for the same load due to: Power loss from resistance = I^2*R (resistance increases, but current decreases proportionally for the same load, so your power loss reduces).

So if you're going for efficiency and long-haul battery life, you already need a big battery and lots of electric motor power. You can leverage that for really strong regenerative braking, which translates to extremely long brake life and further efficiency (as well as being quieter). This also means you can go faster up AND down hills (speed down hills for trucks is limited by brake heating... if you're doing regenerative braking, very little heat is generated).

Also, by using multiple model 3 motors, they can get access to economies of scale that a small-run truck usually can't, which means you can afford to spend more on putting more motor in there.

So you end up with a truck that can do 0-60 in 20s with full load due mostly to other engineering considerations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> What I would really like to see is a smaller version of the truck, and a collaboration with U-Haul. Now that has market value.

</comment><comment><USER78> This would have been a great product to announce on April Fools day - <USER2> continuing to announce it as real afterwards.

</comment><comment><USER79> I predict that when the Semi Unveil happens, they'll only unveil half of the actual vehicle.

</comment><comment><USER80> I was wondering if the best early markets to target might be in the European Union. First of all, at least on the PR-side of things we seem to be a bit more into sustainability; more companies might want to get these just to get a good public reputation. But aside from that it might make more economic sense too.

So I tried a rough estimation.

 _TL;DR:_ I made a very, _very_ rough estimation which suggests that _if Tesla 's original cost per mile number is accurate_, it could be _very_ successful in a handful of European countries, for companies that do not transport cargo internationally.

Making worst-case assumptions about the average costs at each step, switching to the Tesla Semi would be a net _increase_ in costs of 19¢/mile on average.

Making slightly-more-lenient assumptions about electricity costs, switching would give a 28¢/mile savings on average (compared to their claimed 25¢/mile in the USA).

The best-case scenario for Tesla would be a trucking company in Norway that only delivers inside Norway, because then that number improves to somewhere between 59¢/mile to 80¢/mile.

Also, they need to give more context for the $200k+ fuel savings claim, because it seems a bit suspicious: they claim a savings of 25¢/mile, but fuel cost is only a fraction of that. So you would need to travel like a million miles before you reach that amount, which would take over two to three decades at the average distance covered by a truck each year.

I'm not an economist, and a lot of ridiculous assumptions were made in these calculation, so don't take it too seriously.

Still reading? Down the rabbit hole we go...

In the reveal video Tesla claims a cost of $1.51/mile for diesel vs $1.26/mile for their semi[0], so a 25¢/mile savings (I'm going to ignore the convoy savings for now). This assumes fuel costs of $2.50/gallon and 7¢/kwH.

Oh, BTW: the estimated average miles per year is 45k in the US[1]. So at 25¢/mile that would be $11.25k saved per truck in the US on average - <USER3> presumably includes costs saved on repairs. Again: where does that $200k+ fuel savings number come from?

Now, in Europe gas prices are (on average) much higher than the USA. What would be the price per mile here? Well, to estimate that that we must also look at how the price of electricity compares between Europe and the USA.

For diesel, I looked at globalpetrolprices.com[1][2]. It does not provide an average for all of the EU (nor prices per US state, for that matter). Truckers will often plan in such a way that they fill up in the countries on their route with lower gas prices, so let's err on the side of caution and make it $5/mile. To compare the relative difference I'll take the current average US price, which is $2.83/mile. So gas is 1.8x more expensive at the moment, on average.

Now, we do not know the MPG Tesla assumed for diesel trucks. Lets go with the worst-case comparison again, which would be 8 MPG. Increasing $2.83/gallon to $5.00/gallon, that mean be an increase of 27.12¢/mile. Making the improbably assumption that all other costs relevant to this calculation are equal, we can just add that to Tesla's number of $1.51/mile, and end up with $1.78/mile for diesel in Europe.

For electricity I looked up the official governmental statistics provided for electricity USA and European Union[3][4]. Taking the provided national averages, and converting the Euro to US dollars at the current rate of 1.00 to 1.18, I get these numbers:

EU: 15.51¢/kWh domestic, 8.01¢/kWh industrial (second half 2016)

USA: 12.90¢/kWh residential, 9.89¢/kWh transportation, 7.23¢/kWh industrial (August 2016 - more recent statistics exist but I figure we should compare the same time period)

Note that these numbers make Tesla's claim seem a bit fishy, since they assumed 7¢/kWh for the USA, which you don't even get with industrial scale costs.

Europe does not distinguish transportation from other sectors yet, but the worst-case scenario would be using their domestic prices compared to the USA's transportation prices. That would be about 1.5x more expensive, still not as much as diesel.

(I added industrial electricity prices because perhaps a large transportation company with a fleet of electric vehicles and their own charging stations would use so much electricity that they would need industrial energy contracts. At that point the comparison obviously gets a whole lot rosier)

We don't know how much of a factor fuel price is in the price per mile calculation of the Tesla Semi. If we take their claim of lower maintenance costs at face value, it should be a bigger portion of the total. Now, the even-worse-that-worst case scenario would be assuming it's _all_ of it, since that would give the biggest adjustment, and that the relative difference is equal to the domestic price difference:

$1.26/mile * (15.51¢/kWh / 9.89¢/kWh) = $1.97/mile, for a net _increase_ of 19¢/mile.

If we take the relative difference between domestic prices as our starting point, it becomes better again:

$1.26/mile * (15.51¢/kWh / 12.90¢/kWh) = $1.51/mile, for a net savings of 28¢/mile.

So, using the worst possible adjustment for diesel and electricity prices, worst MPG, and worse-than-worse price-per-mile adjustment for Tesla, the economic benefits of switching to these will still be bigger in Europe.

Now lets look at the country with (probably) the best numbers for Tesla: Norway. Despite being an oil-exporting country, it has the highest price per gallon (except Iceland), and lower price per kWh than the USA:

Diesel: $6.99/gallon, electricity: 11.30¢/kWh domestic, 6.28¢/kWh industrial

Keeping everything else worst-case-scenario for Tesla as before:

(6.99-2.83 $/gallon) / 8 MPG = 0.52¢/mile, for a total of $2.03/mile for diesel

$1.26 * 11.30 / 9.89 = $1.44/mile for Tesla, or 59¢/mile saved.

If we assume domestic-to-domestic, the ratio becomes 11.30/12.90. The worst case scenario here would be assuming equal percentage of price per mile as diesel:

$2.5/gallon / 8 MPG = 31.25¢/mile, or 31.25/1.51 = 20.7% of total price per mile

(($1.26 * 79.3) + ($1.26 * 20.7) * 11.30 / 12.90) / 100 = $1.23/mile, for a total of 80¢/mile saved.

... for a total of 80¢/mile saved.

Of course, a proper cost calculation would be much more complicated, since it would depend on the routes your transport company takes, where you are located, how big the company is, etc.

With so many countries I can only assume it requires more red tape to get their semi through all the required tests in Europe (even with EU-wide standards simplifying things there), but it would probably worth it for Tesla to target specific countries with higher fuel costs and lower electricity costs.

Tangent: in the process of looking this up, I discovered that fueleconomy.gov does not have a section for semi-trucks[5]. I wonder if that was blocked by the automotive industry on purpose.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nONx_dgr55I&t=14m](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nONx_dgr55I&t=14m)

[1] [https://hdstruckdrivinginstitute.com/semi-trucks- numbers/](https://hdstruckdrivinginstitute.com/semi-trucks-numbers/)

[1] [http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/diesel_prices/North- Americ...](http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/diesel_prices/North-America/)

[2] [http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/diesel_prices/Europe/](http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/diesel_prices/Europe/)

[3] [https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a)

[4] [http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php/...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics- explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics), [http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=nrg_pc_204&languag...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=nrg_pc_204&language=en&mode=view), [http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=nrg_pc_205&languag...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=nrg_pc_205&language=en&mode=view)

[5] [http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/search.shtml?words=semi](http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/search.shtml?words=semi)

</comment><comment><USER81> Wow not just a semi truck but a new super car? I always wondered what they could do if there weren't trying to make the cars affordable to most of the population, I guess this is it.

620 mile range is disgustingly insane, I wonder how they were able to pull it off. I can't imagine cramming more batteries would help weight and speed, maybe it uses some kind of different battery technology to get that kind of power storage.

<comment><USER82> Tesla isn't really that affordable. It's more like the iPhone of electric cars: they're trying to make the best electric car everybody wants. Renault/Nissan are the ones trying to make it affordable. I read the Zoe is a best seller, although in rather too low volumes compared to ICE cars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> I wonder if the strong glass is the same material used in the solar roof tiles.

</comment><comment><USER84> Looks like a re-run of Knight Rider...

</comment><comment><USER85> model S, 3, X, then the D, now a semi... what's elon trying to tell us.

<comment><USER86> S3X DRIVE could be a cheeky pun along the lines of The Boring Company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> When you have hundreds of thousands of customers with paid reservations waiting for Model 3s, why on Earth would you spend resources launching another product line? It's madness.

<comment><USER88> Because the "make a new product" teams and the "fix the battery manufacturing process" teams are mostly different teams. Engineers are not entirely fungible.

<comment><USER87> It's not just battery manufacturing, it's everything manufacturing. It's clear that Musk (therefore Tesla) is addicted to the rush of developing and releasing new products but are loathe to dedicate time towards the boring, iterative process of manufacturing optimization. To the point of farming out as much manufacturing as possible to third parties (Panasonic, China).

It's clear they want to be a design shop in the vein of an Apple, as opposed to an industrial manufacturer like GM/Ford/GE. I would not be surprised to see them offshore manufacturing more and more in the future (see their recent China deal).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER89> Details for those that couldn't watch the live stream:

-500 mile range on a full charge. On empty 30 min of charging will get you 400 miles.

-Lower drag coefficient than a bugatti veyron

-They're claiming cost per mile is less than rail for shipping goods.

-2019 availability

-Lane centering + other features (jack knife prevention)

-1,000,000 mile guarantee

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

Also they surprised announced a new roadster:

-New plaid mode (beyond ludicrous) 0-60 in 1.9s.

-620 mile range

<comment> semi-extrinsic > Lower drag coefficient than a bugatti veyron

I LOLed at this one. Supercars want lots of downforce so they don't constantly go off the road and you die. They're not built for low Cd. A Toyota Prius has 35% lower drag coefficient than a Bugatti Veyron.

It's like when the "superfruit" people go "look at this amazing berry, it has 20% more vitamin C than a lemon!" Well yeah, an orange has 70% more vitamin than a lemon. Marketing wank for the uninformed masses.

> On empty 30 min of charging will get you 400 miles.

I did a double take here. To do that we're talking ~ 1000 kWh drawn from the grid in 30 min; that's pulling 2 megawatts of power. None of the existing Supercharger installations come close to providing enough power for even one truck.

It also means that on the distribution grid, a charging station for 8 semis will need a dedicated 20 MVA 33/11 kV distribution transformer, plus 4 11kV/480V transformers. Unless you manage to keep those charging slots filled 90% of the time, that's going to be bloody expensive electricity.

<comment><USER90> > Lower drag coefficient than a bugatti veyron

Also, the coefficient is then multiplied by the frontal area of the vehicle. A semi has a helluva frontal area.

<comment><USER91> Also, drag scales with the square of the velocity [1], and a semi is a helluva slower than a racing supercar.

\---

[1] drag = 1/2 x air_density x frontal_area x drag_coefficient x velocity^2

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> tim-- The poor guys are self-DDoS'ing themselves.

They keep requesting [https://livestream.tesla.com/haveReservationsStarted](https://livestream.tesla.com/haveReservationsStarted) every 30 seconds. Most of the requests are failing with 502 HTTP errors.

<comment><USER92> Why are they hosting their own streaming service instead of using YouTube?

<comment><USER93> Elon plans to go to Mars, surely he can handle video streaming...

<comment><USER94> These are two very different things

<comment><USER95> Yes. One requires attention to a huge number of details, to be certain that many systems work together flawlessly. The other, you can just reload if it screws up.

<comment><USER96> I don't think you can reload a rocket ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Product page up now: [https://www.tesla.com/semi/?new](https://www.tesla.com/semi/?new)

<comment><USER97> Nice! Fun to imagine this with bog standard random shipping container in the back... Or will everything have to switch to shiny silver tesla shipping containers?

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Getting a 502 response. Also Tesla should probably update nginx since v1.10.2 is at EOL with an outstanding CVE.

<comment><USER99> Really happy not to be the Tesla DevOps group right now.

<comment><USER100> I bet they outsource these live event streams.

<comment><USER101> USTREAM

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> Can't get anything from tesla.com, but this livestream works!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvJV1AqRd8g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvJV1AqRd8g)

</comment><comment><USER103> Asking for an email to watch? For something like this? Are they planning to spam people after to try and sell product? Some marketing manager is being a bit old company on this one.

</comment><comment><USER29> I love Tesla, but there's something poetic about even the livestream being delayed by 10 minutes

<comment><USER94> Their events are always delayed

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The live stream is moving on to the roadster now.

Says 1/4 mile is 8.9 seconds, which is just nuts for a car you can buy off the lot.

I'm guessing insurance might be high on that car.

<comment><USER104> [https://www.tesla.com/roadster/](https://www.tesla.com/roadster/)

<comment><USER55> Ahh. $250k, so insurance isn't really an issue if you can buy it in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> The site is showing in Chinese for me. It really irks me when sites don't respect the browser's language. Surely this is a solved problem?

<comment><USER106> This is 1,000% an unsolved problem, with an extra helping of fuck you Google and Facebook.

I browser without cookies and generally from Asian VPNs, and as far as I can tell, nobody is remotely respecting the browser's language. Google have also recently started showing English language search results in Thailand with archaic Thai-language dates, which is also insane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> youtube stream for those getting errors: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFN4BfbqlbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFN4BfbqlbA)

</comment><comment><USER107> How are they doing this without triggering a browser prompt to allow my location to be sent by browser? The result for me was very accurate. Why wouldn't all the ecommerce sites use this method? I keep denying their prompts to access my location otherwise.

[https://location.teslamotors.com/geoip/v1.0.3/city/](https://location.teslamotors.com/geoip/v1.0.3/city/)

<comment> tim-- That just looks like Maxmind's GeoIP. [https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/whats-new-in- geoip2/](https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/whats-new-in-geoip2/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> Yikes. NGINX throwing 502 errors. No bueno from a company with a market cap of 52 billion. Plus they seem to be running over 10 minutes late.

</comment><comment><USER108> The video is livestreaming for me, but it's stuck on "Standby for the Tesla semi unveil". Anyone else seeing this?

<comment><USER109> Yep same here. Don't reload -- I tried opening the stream in a second window, and couldn't get in at all (stuck on submitting the "watch event" form)

</comment></comment><comment><USER110> Since I can't see anything except a spinning wheel on the button and "Event in progress" here are my questions for others: What is the payload (tongue) capacity? What is the tow (pull) capacity? Is there any mention of being able to pull a fifth wheel?

</comment><comment><USER111> Plus surprise supercar announcement?

</comment><comment><USER112> working youtube stream: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFN4BfbqlbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFN4BfbqlbA)

</comment><comment><USER113> This live stream consistently causes the first crash I've noticed in ages: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1418059](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1418059). Yes, when you use Firefox Nightly as your browser it does just _occasionally_ cause trouble. But mostly it's just awesome.

</comment><comment><USER114> Er. So is this actually on? I'm getting hold music that feels straight out of Knight Rider.

<comment><USER101> I'm liking the music. Can anyone identify it? Would love to use this during work.

<comment><USER114> Shazam giving me zip, sadly.

<comment><USER115> I wonder if it'll come round on SpaceX FM? [http://www.spacexfm.com/](http://www.spacexfm.com/)

They have a lot of custom audio for bits and pieces like this. It's a neat little loop though, and I want it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The new Tesla Roadster "Founders Edition" costs $250k, paid up-front, and only 1,000 are made.

In other words Tesla just put $250 million in the bank by rubbing rich peoples' egos.

<comment><USER116> And making a really really nice limited-edition car, apparently.

<comment><USER29> Of course, but they effectively get three years at zero interest to make good on that.

<comment><USER116> Kickstarter for the 1%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER117> still playing the "standby" slide at 2012 PST. i assume this to mean the event was scheduled to begin at 1900 PST?

<comment><USER118> I believe it was meant to launch at 2000 PST, that's when it was counting down to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER119> <nevermind>

<comment><USER93> Clicking the play button just takes me to the (down) Tesla page.

<comment><USER119> yeah, my bad, I guess it's not a shortcut

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> New car as well!

</comment><comment><USER121> This is only a semi-reveal. Maybe the stream will work after they do the complete reveal?

</comment><comment><USER122> Can we talk about that music?

</comment><comment> bra-ket yuck, what a soulless piece of crap

</comment><comment><USER123> Jack of all trades master of none. What is Musk doing? This guy is all over the map.

<comment><USER124> Methodically going after sources of anthropogenic climate change

</comment></comment><comment><USER125> Probably not a popular opinion but this Tesla business feels like what I imagine being cult or Ponzi scheme would feel like.

</comment><comment><USER126> The fact that diesel semis have a 1000+ mile range was conspicuously left out of the unveil. I had to do a bit of research.

I suppose it's all marketing in the end and Elon cherry picked the facts that would suit him.

Yes, I understand 80% of trips are under 250 miles. But is an almost 50% reduction in range that easily shrugged off?

<comment><USER127> Since you're legally required to take a 30 minute break every couple of hours, _does it really matter_?

</comment></comment><comment><USER128> It's cute. No trucking company is going to add it to it's fleet though... after thinking about SigmundA's research and coming from a family of Truckers - I can't see how this will help/work. It's just a cool thing to see and boost company image. Trucker's don't want to drive a lone. Trucker's usually have people along for a ride or a sleeper cab. Sitting in the middle would suck. I sincerely doubt this thing can haul loads of more than 12.5tons.</comment>


Someone screwed Balsamiq website - <AUTHOR> http://balsamiq.com/

<comment><USER2> This was already posted this morning, with a lot of discussion <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3075405></comment>


Introducing the New Uber App - <AUTHOR> https://ride.uber.com/en_US/video <comment><USER2> The integrations with Pandora, Yelp and Snapchat seem to be interesting. Most of the traditional big companies don't want to allow other companies to get a portion of their traffic. It's good to see that Uber would rather focus on what they do the best and integrate interesting features of the other apps.</comment>


ISIS darknet site is Wordpress hosted in Amsterdam - <AUTHOR> https://krypt3ia.wordpress.com/2015/11/18/daesh-darknet-under-the-hood/ <comment><USER2> That's a pretty thin bit of evidence. A simple traceroute tells a different story.

      traceroute -n 188.8.131.52
      traceroute to 220.127.116.11 (188.8.131.52), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
       1  192.168.178.1  0.234 ms  0.256 ms  0.347 ms
       2  * * *
       3  18.104.22.168  28.455 ms  28.474 ms  28.465 ms
       4  184.108.40.206  28.555 ms  28.442 ms  28.535 ms
       5  * * *
       6  184.108.40.206  28.556 ms 126.96.36.199  40.941 ms  40.837 ms
       7  126.96.36.199  40.916 ms  12.764 ms  20.108 ms
       8  126.96.36.199  163.443 ms  225.328 ms  237.616 ms
       9  126.96.36.199  20.033 ms  24.019 ms  11.429 ms
      10  126.96.36.199  15.245 ms  16.994 ms  16.989 ms

Confirmed by a simple whois on the /16:

whois 188.8.131.52 % This is the RIPE Database query service. % The objects are in RPSL format. % % The RIPE Database is subject to Terms and Conditions. % See [http://www.ripe.net/db/support/db-terms- conditions.pdf](http://www.ripe.net/db/support/db-terms-conditions.pdf)

      % Note: this output has been filtered.
      %       To receive output for a database update, use the "-B" flag.

      % Information related to '188.8.131.52 - 220.127.116.11'

      % Abuse contact for '184.108.40.206 - 220.127.116.11' is 'firstname.lastname@example.com'

      inetnum:        18.104.22.168 - 188.8.131.52
      geoloc:         40.76573368922964 29.789603054523468
      netname:        Isim-Kayit-Bilisim
      descr:          Isim Kayit Bilisim
      country:        TR
      admin-c:        KK5679-RIPE
      tech-c:         KK5679-RIPE
      status:         ASSIGNED PA
      mnt-by:         isimkayit
      created:        2015-03-30T16:37:54Z
      last-modified:  2015-03-30T16:46:06Z
      source:         RIPE # Filtered

      person:         Kadir Kurt
      abuse-mailbox:  email@example.com
      address:        Esentepe Mah. Agadere Cad. NO:75 Kat:1 Korfez/Kocaeli
      phone:          +908502903344
      nic-hdl:        KK5679-RIPE
      mnt-by:         isimkayit
      created:        2015-03-13T13:57:32Z
      last-modified:  2015-03-30T13:04:37Z
      source:         RIPE # Filtered

      % Information related to '22.214.171.124/24As43260'

      route:          220.127.116.11/24
      descr:          Isim Kayit Bilisim ve Web Hosting Hizmetleri
      origin:         As43260
      mnt-by:         isimkayit
      created:        2015-03-16T14:52:59Z
      last-modified:  2015-06-26T07:29:03Z
      source:         RIPE # Filtered
      remarks:        Sirketimiz, ilgili kanun geregi, "YER SAGLAYICI" konumundadir.
      remarks:        Olusturulan icerikler musterilerin kontrol ve yonetimindeki web sunucularindan yapilmaktadir.
      remarks:        Kanun No. 5651 - MADDE 5(1) Yer saglayici, yer sagladigi icerigi kontrol etmek veya
      remarks:        hukuka aykiri bir faaliyetin soz konusu olup olmadigini arastirmakla yukumlu degildir.

      % This query was served by the RIPE Database Query Service version 1.82 (DB-2)

So my money would be on the host residing in Turkey.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cracking work!</comment>


Monthly cost of child care for one child in San Francisco is $1,955 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/mommyfiles/article/housing-expensive-childcare-cost-of-living-rent-13189388.php <comment><USER2> My goodness... that's more than a mortgage in many places. Even if you have parents/in-laws that could help, unless they live on their own, then there's the added cost of paying more to have more people living together. And without paid maternity/paternity leave, then you can't stay home either. That's a tough financial situation.

</comment><comment><USER3> What the heck are they spending there money on? Food, and Clean clothes should not cost that much a month?

</comment><comment> vanesa- $1,955? Where??? I've only been finding child care for minimum $2500!</comment>


New malware turns your computer into a cellular antenna - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2965912/security/new-malware-turns-your-computer-into-a-cellular-antenna.html

<comment><USER2> I'm not seeing the issue. Sorry. I've worked in a number of air-gapped work spaces and each one was also a Faraday cage.

When there are "N" viable attack vectors, you'd better defend against all "N" of them.

Two very simple steps to prevent immense grief are ZERO consumer electronics and ZERO inbound media that has not been thoroughly vetted on an external system (i.e., outside the protected work area).

You can let the engineers do and use whatever they want whenever they want to, but plan for a disaster. Don't trust the engineers (nothing personal). In my experience, they seem to lack the right degree of paranoia about practical security.</comment>


Open Source HTML5 Screen Sharing: Share your screen, right from your browser - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
 I have developed a google chrome extension which allow you share your browser screen with anyone right from your browser.
http://deadsimplescreensharing.com
Please give me your feedback, and help me in improving this app. <comment><USER2> clickable <http://http://deadsimplescreensharing.com/>

Haven'tried. Suggested fix: on <http://deadsimplescreensharing.com/#tutorial> Comming Up -> Coming up

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I will fix the typo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's working for me, but it is really slow. Like showing up a minute later. Seems like it would be awesome and useful when not so latent.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Latency is because I am running it on Heroku 1 Dyno instance. If someone donates some money, I will transfer the app to EC2.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did some work for Mozilla on a HTML5 browser sharer: <https://github.com/JohnMcLear/browsermirror> \-- Not sure how well supported it nowadays, kinda old project.

Your extension brings my browser to a really slow pace.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will into it and update the extension. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hi Muhammad,

If you want to stand out in the overcrowded screensharing space, build this one feature:

Allow me to send a URL to anyone so I can see THEIR screen instantly, without them having to download crap.

You will become an instant 'crorepati' :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, but to build this feature there must be something running in the background, which will send data to the server. There is already a App which does this thing but it's a Java applet. <http://quickscreenshare.com/> BTW: I don't want to make money from this app, it's just something I did on a weekend. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Have you looked into using webRTC for the stream transfer and using the server only for signalling? Not sure if these apis are available within extensions but this would make the server much cheaper to run.

</comment><comment><USER7> Was anyone able to visit this site?

I still have a tab open thinking that it was just brought offline through traffic... but just refreshed and still can't get on :/

</comment><comment><USER8> Can you share only the browser tab or even what happens on your desktop? Does it use VNC?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can only share the browser tab, and not the desktop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is the extension code open sourced? I only see the server code on github.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I forgot to upload the extension code on github, I will do it tomorrow.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please tell me if anyone is facing delay or latency issues. Thanks

</comment><comment><USER9> Not working for me, I'm getting "No Connection" screen :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Try scrolling or changing tabs while sharing is on. It updates the screen on scroll, tab changed and Dom updates

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi from the Etherpad team :)

<comment><AUTHOR> What are your views about this app?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> HTML5 make it sound like something that can be done cross browser, rather than something via the chrome.* apis for their extensions. That having been said, I've read about something of the sort related to WebRTC, Chrome seems to be interested in making in possible at least: <http://blog.chromium.org/2012/04/chromes-webrtc-roadmap.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> To make it work across various tabs i needed something running in the background that's reason for using chrome apis. Thanks.</comment></comment>


Defective C++ - <AUTHOR> http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/defective.html <comment><USER2> Patrick (of BCC) talks about evergreen content. It seems like this set of FQAs has been around forever, but it still gives me a chuckle whenever I read it again. I say this as one who used C++ for a decade.

The clincher for me was reading Coders at Work in which C++ really got slammed by people who seriously know what they are doing.

</comment><comment><USER3> This guy makes some points, but he obviously does not understand C++.

<comment><USER4> Care to back that up? What parts of the FQA do you dispute?</comment></comment>


Constant-Time Mul - <AUTHOR> https://www.bearssl.org/ctmul.html <comment><USER2> In an ideal world, we should teach _compilers_ how to do constant-time operations and/or intrinsics, and then use those compilers to write cryptographic code. The compiler could then use primitives that work in constant time on the target platform (implementing them without hardware support if necessary for a given target) and produce a compile-time error if it can't produce constant-time code for a given target or for a given piece of code.

<comment><USER3> Something like FaCT? [https://github.com/PLSysSec/FaCT](https://github.com/PLSysSec/FaCT)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not an expert at all, but from what I've read about the C standard and how compilers interpret it, it seems dangerous to implement things like this (constant time integer multiplication) as C macros.

It should probably be done in (inline) assembly, to avoid the compiler optimizing away the extra "pointless" bits for instance. Just because a favorite compiler doesn't do it today, doesn't mean it's safe.

I'm sure the actual authors of code like this have analyzed the resulting code and know more than I do about the safety of the operations involved, but I didn't see that covered in the article.

<comment><USER5> The reason not to implement this in inline assembly is that you would have to implement unique assembly for each architecture supported, which would mean probably dozens of different implementations, especially considering that even on a given architecture there are notable processor-family differences in whether the same multiply instruction is constant time or not.

In any case, I think it's safe to say that 'pornin knows more about writing safe C code (and dealing with strange compiler behavior) than almost anyone.

<comment><USER6> But that's the core of the problem -- the code has to be architecture specific because the constant nature of integer multiplication depends on the processor architecture. Once you're writing a multiple for an XX-generation Intel processor, you might as well write it as assembly, rather than have a MUL_XX macro that will probably do the right thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Constant-time operations feel like such a hack.

I mean, sure, if we could ensure that all operations were always constant- time, that'd be a rather simple, stress-free way to get time-invariance. But the low-level implementation assumptions feel flimsy.

Instead, if we want time-invariance, seems like we should just have dispatchers handle it -- this is, if we want the system to hide timing information, we should explicitly specify this behavior rather than trying to get it as a side-effect.

\---

Note: We don't actually need strict time-invariance so much as for any time- variance to not leak information about secrets. For example, if a dispatcher takes an hour to resume a process, then sure an attacker might very easily pick up on that time-variance introduced by the dispatcher, but so long as it doesn't reflect on any secret information, who cares?

<comment><USER8> One problem I see is in determining the amount of time before resuming. You have to be sure that all possible inputs will take less time than what you request, but you don't want to wait forever. You also have to be robust against disturbances due to things like system load. If you specify a maximum time based on the no-load scenario, then an attacker discovers that they can bog down your system by flooding it with packets while it does the computation, you're back to leaking info.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, a dispatcher would have to be designed to guard its secrets. For example, it'd have to ensure that it can do tasks in whatever window it needs to, have a logic for simulating CPU-load if an attacker might be able to watch the CPU's process load, potentially force the CPU to burn more power if we're trying to protect against power-analysis, etc..

Logically, it'd seem like a more complex task since we'd have to keep track of what secrets we're guarding and planning an execution strategy to meet those criteria. But, it feels cleaner to acknowledge these criteria and ensure that they're being addressed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would be interesting to know what the ARM SecurCore SC300 processor[1] does, if that is constant time multiply or if they just expect you will use the hardware crypto accelerators that are commonly integrated with it, e.g. in the ST33 [2].

[1] [https://developer.arm.com/ip- products/processors/securcore/s...](https://developer.arm.com/ip- products/processors/securcore/sc300-processor) [2] [https://www.st.com/en/secure-mcus/st33-arm- sc300.html](https://www.st.com/en/secure-mcus/st33-arm-sc300.html)

<comment><USER10> I believe SC300 code is just a C-M3, so timings would be the same as C-M3 (variable based on input). ARM even says the programer's model and all other m3 docs apply on the SC300 site

<comment><USER9> Ah thanks, that explains why I couldn't find the programmers manual for it directly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't there some way to just pad up the variable time that some sensitive operation takes, by spinning on a fine-grained clock register until it reaches a predetermined value? This could be calibrated by timing a known worst case.

<comment><USER12> _"spinning on a fine-grained clock register until it reaches a predetermined value"_ would require a second thread to do that counting, and isn't guaranteed to be constant time.

Also, even if it were, one probably could detect that the CPU was just spinning from a side channel, for example by tracking CPU sleep state, cache line pressure or contention for integer units in the CPU.

<comment><USER11> Can't constant-time multiplication techniques somehow fall victim to that level of visbility?

(If we can track details like contention for integer units in the CPU, why don't we just peek at what bits are churning through the registers?)

<comment><USER13> No; the core goal of side-channel-free algorithms (of which constant time algorithms are a subset) is that the instructions executed by the CPU should not depend on secret data.

Spinning until a fixed time is reached could conceivably leak information if another thread can time math-unit bandwidth; it would be able to distinguish the spinwait from bona-fide mathematical computation.

However, no (known) method accessible to code running on the machine can distinguish between an adder unit summing zeroes versus key data.

<comment><USER11> Can't we throw a few math instructions into the spin loop?

<comment><USER14> -> Can we throw _exactly the same number_ of math (micro)operations into the spin loop?

-> Can we just make sure the exact same operation operations occur?

<comment><USER11> The first idea seems way easier to achieve and maintain. It can be implemented at higher level around a complex, lumped operation, like calculating a signature, without having to go into all of that operation's subroutines to change everything to constant time. We could conceivably drop it into any language, wrapping it around any crypto, while treating that as a black-box.

<comment><USER11> Could also be faster. That is to say, variable-time calculations likely have a worst case time that is better than for the equivalent fixed-time calculations, since we just write the obvious code for the CPU using its normal instructions and optimize as usual. If we are able to box the padded time fairly tightly to the worst case, we are better off performance-wise than with the fixed-time implementations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Unrelated - I'm browsing this page right now over a proxy that's part of a project I'm working on in Haskell, using BearSSL for HTTPS. I can't of course speak to the correctness of the crypto primitives, but the project is small, self-contained, well written and easy to navigate such that writing the Haskell wrapper for it was relatively straight-forward. Great project.

<comment><USER16> Thomas Pornin (BearSSL) is incredibly talented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> such a great post full of gems like this:

"… Tanja Lange pointed me to this study by Wouter de Groot, who performed actual measures on some Cortex-M3 devices, from which it appeared that a short cycle count could occur not only in the documented case (operands fit in 16 bits) but also when one or both of the operands is zero or a power of 2. In the case of MUL31(), this means that the underlying umull will complete in 5 cycles, except if one or both of the two operands are zero, in which case the umull will complete in 4 cycles. …"

</comment><comment><USER18> why can't we solve the constant-time issue by just deciding before the action how long it should take in the worst case, and then just wait for that time before continuing?

<comment><USER19> edit: see other discussion below, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20395393](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20395393)

presumably, that would make it very slow, since for every multiplication you'd have to check a timer. you could maybe do it at a higher level, but then how would you know how long a combination of operations would take on that processor? but for a web API, adding random jitter seems like it'd force attackers to use a lot more trials to gain any timing insight.</comment></comment>


KitKat hits 2.5% adoption, Jelly Bean 62%, a third still on ICS or Gingerbread - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/google/2014/03/04/android-kitkat-hits-2-5-adoption-jelly-bean-grabs-62-third-play-users-still-ics-gingerbread/ <comment><USER2> At this point, Gingerbread devices are so old, these numbers need some weighting. Are those Gingerbread users still downloading new 3rd party apps? If not, the raw share of active devices is misleading for the purpose of planning development of new products.

<comment><USER3> "Each snapshot of data represents all the devices that visited the Google Play Store in the prior 7 days."

This also contains people who only open the play store by accident, or to install updates where the app permission have changed. But I would personally see any person who opens the play store as a person who is able and willing to download an app.

Anyway, I think the numbers are good. compared with other cross platform technologies, Android versions are adopted reasonably fast.

<comment><USER2> For tablet-oriented apps and anything that's aimed at green-field deployent, it's an easy decision to go 4.x and back-port as time permits, but for a certain class of mass-market, non-game apps you want to access every stingy, retrograde user out there from a unified code base.

That may have gotten easier with the new ActionBar in the Support Library. Using lame ActionBar substitutes used to make using Support Library back- compatibility a PITA.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you define a tech lead? - <AUTHOR>

This role often differs from company to company. What would be your description for a tech lead?<p>And along with that question, are you one? Would you want to become or stay one after what you've seen or experienced? <comment><USER2> Based on my experiences: They shield junior developers from themselves and from upper management. They know how to translate requirements from management into feasible projects. They perform code reviews and lead the collaborative process of designing a system.

It's more about taking ownership of the process than about the code itself.

I haven't had any developers report to me but might be interested at some point in my career. Over time you realize that having strongly defined processes (while avoiding micromanagement) is at least as important as technical skills, and it requires strong leadership.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah also shielding from other parts of the company.

What would make you more inclined to having developers report to you?

<comment><USER2> Sorry for the late response.

It's less about oversight, and more about what I could do. In my first full- time development job, I was working under a lead developer who was seriously badass at mentoring people and making sure they knew what they had to do (though I don't think he realized it - it was his first time being promoted to a leadership position!). To this day, when I'm feeling stressed out at work, I'll think "What would Rob have advised me to do?" and it makes me feel more secure about my decisions.

Junior developers are often really idealistic and ambitious, and I would like to be in a position where I could reward and facilitate that instead of crushing it (which happens all too often).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> At my company, I am the tech lead.

(For me), the company isn't big enough to justify a full time Software Architect. Also, generally Software Architects don't spend a lot of time (if any) coding.

I prefer the title Tech Lead over Senior Developer, because a Senior Developer could be someone doing the same job for several years (ie a mid level developer who has been there for a long time). A Tech Lead is responsible if something goes wrong.

A Tech Lead also has a mentoring component. Senior Developers don't necessarily have the communication skills to do this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you the only tech lead at your company?

That's a good definition to distinguish between senior developers. How do you mentor your engineers?

<comment><USER3> Yes, I'm the only Tech Lead. We are a tiny company (less than 10 staff)

But even in bigger companies I've worked for, mentoring is probably the biggest difference. I've worked with a LOT of Senior Developers where English is a 2nd language. For all sorts of reasons they struggle with education / training / selling (selling an idea to the business - why we should / shouldn't use TDD etc).

Mentoring is easy - so long as you align yourself with what the person wants. Do they want to understand design patterns? Some sort of funky UI stuff? Mobile dev?

You also have to ensure _they_ perceive you as an equal. (Not I'm better than you). That can be tricky and often patience is the best strategy.

Make sense? Hit me up offline if you need more detail...</comment></comment></comment>