Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/07/waymo-now-testing-its-self-driving-cars-on-public-roads-with-no-one-at-the-wheel/ <comment><USER3> It will be interesting to see how Lyft's partnership with Waymo evolves given this tech announcement and Waymo's acknowledgment that they plan to offer their own ridesharing service.

Lyft's approach to self-driving partnerships in general seems to rest on the assumption that self-driving providers will catch up to each other before any of them can fully handle everything a human driver can do. If this assumption is correct, Lyft ends up in the great position of being compatible with all major self-driving providers before any of them can feasibly launch a standalone service without Lyft's driver network (who wants to take a car service that doesn't take you downtown? Or doesn't work in the rain?). Ideally, this means Lyft can negotiate favorable terms with all the providers and maintain their position as marketplace brokering between riders and ride providers (either human or robot).

But, if this announcement means Waymo is truly way ahead of the competition, is Lyft aiding and abetting its own demise by covering Waymo's short-term holes (weather, urban areas, etc) up until the day that Waymo can cut Lyft out and run their own service? If Waymo is the only self-driving game in town, and they solve the urban case, why do they need Lyft? I wonder if we'll see any tension develop between the two if leadership at Lyft starts to get concerned about this scenario being a likely outcome.

<comment><USER4> Here is the most probable scenarios I foresee.

If you are a pessimist about autonomous being bigger part of transpiration then add 2 years to DATES shown below.

2021 : Electric Self-driving on-demand FLEET Car 1000 miles/month SUBSCRIPTION from Google, DiDi, Uber, Renault/Nissan,Tesla, VW,Toyota,GM for $400/month

2024 :same 1000 miles/month SUBSCRIPTION $200/month

At $200/month Subscription price for 1000 miles/month (which is average US driver car mileage/month), savings are so big as average car ownership is around $400/month ( AAA Estimate ) , all inclusive of

\- Car depreciation

\- Insurance cost

\- gasoline cost

\- Repairs & maintenance costs

\- extra 1 hours/day you get in NOT-Driving

(EDIT: This Model I mentioned is Summon only, there is NO OWNERSHIP of the Car, is it monthly pay instead of per RIDE Pay . In this Model, All the Major CAR Manufactures of today offer these FLEETS with monthly pay of 1000/miles month SUBSCRIPTIONS.

Being a) no-driver Cost b) ELECTRIC c) RIDE Sharing d) mass adoption -- is the key for Lower price tag of $200/month )

The above is Phase 1, in Phase 2 starting 2025 Google will be supplying only "end-to-end Autonomous vehicle Software system" for a fee of $5000/year per car for ALL the CAR FLEET companies .

Google will run small FLEET of Autonomous CARs for the purpose of "Reference implementation of Software" much like "Pixel Android Phones" to showcase the Reference implementation of Android ( for all other Android Vendors )

<comment><USER5> I still think that proper self-driving cars are such a paradigm shift that predictions of how it will work are still up in the air.

For example, right now I live on the west coast and my parents live on the east coast. 4 kids, Minimum of 40 hour drive or $3500 flight.

Here's one tiny example:

I can work remotely for a few weeks and my boss doesn't mind. The kids sleep for 8+ hours at night. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday nights driving for 12 hours (mostly sleeping) means I am at my parent's house on Tuesday and I either take Monday as vacation or work remotely from a friend's house in Ohio. We see friends in flyover country that we rarely visit or see national parks on Saturday and Sunday.

I can now take the whole family to my parents taking just 2 days of vacation/remote for the trip, for only the depreciation cost on my car. Car trip isn't too bad because the kids are awake for a total of the running time of 6 movies.

Car usage will go up by an order of magnitude because a major cost of driving isn't the dollars, but the time.

<comment><USER6> > Car usage will go up by an order of magnitude because a major cost of > driving isn't the dollars, but the time.

This is why I think self driving cars will make traffic worse, not better. The more comfortable it is to be inside a car and the less people mind long car rides, the more people will drive (self driving or otherwise). If road infrastructure is the same, that necessarily means a much higher density of cars on the road. It's possible that self driving cars will be more space efficient on the road, but ten times more efficient? I think it's more likely that there will just be way more cars on the road and traffic will worsen considerably.

<comment><USER7> To detail one particular addition of traffic to the roads: students - <USER2> self-driving cars, students from K-12 may much rather want to have the independence to hop in a car rather than ride a "stinky school bus". Parents may end up loving it, especially those who already drive their kids to school. And I'm sure the school districts would love self-driving cars, because it means they can pass the travel expenses onto the parents to pay for those cars, instead of having to buy tens of millions of dollars worth of buses, pay bus drivers, liability and insurance, gas, etc. (where I grew up a single school bus cost the district over $1m; we had a fleet of maybe 40-50 buses)

In my home-town of 30k people, nearly 2,000 of those are high school students alone, plus probably another 1,000 elementary school kids, and maybe 800 middle school. No doubt they'd all want to use the cool tech to ride to school instead of taking the school bus. Add 4,000 more cars to the road please. (And as for ride-sharing, that may be fun once in a while, but why do that when I can get an entire entertainment pod all to myself?)

<comment><USER8> The self-driving platform will financially nudge you in the right direction.

Currently Uber charges more during rush hour.

It's rather obvious that self-driving operator will implement similar price discrimination e.g. $10 if you drive alone, $5 if you share with one or more people.

And the more they want you to share, the bigger the surcharge e.g. if $10 vs. $5 doesn't have desired effect then maybe $20 vs $5 will.

It's a win-win during rush hour (operator makes much more money from the few people who don't care about money and minimizes over-all traffic by packing more people into a single car).

<comment> semi-extrinsic Still, traffic will be worse when you compare one bus with 50 people vs. 12 self-driving cars with 4 people each. A bus is 14-15m long, whereas even a small car like the Chevy Bolt is over 4m. So parked bumper-to-bumper the cars produce >3x as much traffic, and then you add some gaps for actually driving you're up to 4x.

Personally I'm very skeptical of both the claim that a) self-driving cars will see huge adoptation at the cost of car ownsership and that b) self-driving cars will give less traffic, less pollution and be significantly cheaper than owning a car.

On the latter point, we have basic economic theory: say the average American today spends $600/month total on owning a car. Why would anyone price a self- driving service at $200/month? No, they'd go for an initial price of $400/month for a couple of years to get customers, then sneak back up to $600/month once they've caught most of the market.

<comment><USER4> > say the average American today spends $600/month total on owning a car. Why > would anyone price a self-driving service at $200/month? No, they'd go for > an initial price of $400/month for a couple of years to get customers, then > sneak back up to $600/month once they've caught most of the market.

In year 2000, in order to run a medium web site as a company you need 2 Servers one for each Database, WebServer. People bought each server box for $5000 and server capacity used is only at 15%

Come to 2012, Amazon AWS charged for the same Servers only $40/month . Amazon know It costs lots for website owners, why they offer all the server capacity for $40 ???

<comment><USER9> > People bought each server box for $5000 and server capacity used is only at > 15%

So why do they need _2_ servers?

Also, I'm pretty sure VPSes and shared hosting were available in 2000.

<comment><USER10> VPSes did not exist as a commercial product in 2000. Back then you likely purchased and colo'd your hardware or leased from a provider. You could get shared hosting with CGI access but that was about it.

<comment><USER11> Shared hosting (with PHP, mod_perl and SSI) was available from thousands of providers for between $5 and $25/month. SSL required a dedicated IP, because SNI wasn't a thing yet, and so if you wanted an SSL enabled site, you were looking at closer to $100/month. But that was for managed, shared hosting, typically with access to a database and automated backup. Good enough for most businesses small-ish web presences.

Rackspace offered dedicated servers for $150/month and up. Smaller providers would rent you a server in their datacenter for around $60/month. I used a company called sagonet in the early 2000s that is still in business and still offering a similar service for about $30/month: [http://www.synergyisp.com/dedicated- servers/](http://www.synergyisp.com/dedicated-servers/)

Most larger companies at the time contracted with a colocation provider and purchased servers for between $1000 and $4000 each, and paid in the neighborhood of $1000/month for a rack, or $500/month for a half rack, including power and network.

This was monumentally cheaper than the AWS based stack we have these days, though - no company with any complexity to their website has a $40/month AWS bill. A company with a similar SAAS offering to what I ran in 2001 for $40K up front and $500/month is probably looking at a $5000/month AWS bill at today's rates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >>> "Waymo will be operating a fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel ... Waymo wants to broaden the geographic scope of its trial, starting with expansion in the near-term to cover the entire Phoenix metro area, which represents more acreage than the whole of the Greater London area, he noted"

My family is mostly in Tempe / Mesa area (near Chandler, AZ) and during my last few visits I've seen an increasing number of these autonomous (driver-at- the-wheel) cars on the streets. Note that Uber / Lyft also are very popular in the area.

Waymo's transition to a general-public/driverless service in the whole Phoenix area will be the first time that automated ride-hailing services go up against human-driven ride-hailing services. This will be a very interesting and perhaps disturbing experiment. I predict Waymo will price their service competitively, will ramp up to a large fleet, and that after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble. The public will accept the perceived risks in driverless rides.

Over a longer term it will be interesting to see what impact there is on car- buying, congestion ... I wonder whether Waymo will provide ride-sharing as well.

EDIT: clarification; ride-sharing; car market; traffic congestion. ( Hmmm, also adding that "... after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble" is probably too compressed, it realistically will take a longer time. )

<comment><USER13> >> __ _The public will accept the perceived risks in driverless rides._ __

This is what I am trying to highlight - what, specifically, are these risks that people need to be made aware of?

So now, in addition to everything, there will come a day when a person is stranded some-place as the driverless car couldnt exactly find them, and the person had to call the call center to get help and guess what... calling the call center for uber and lyft has been an "email us and we wil get back to you in 24 hours" type of thing, so imagine the following scenario which will happen in the next few years:

Person takes a driverless car to an event.

Person winds up being in an unsafe environment and needs immediate assistance.

Person gets into the driverless car way too intoxicated and passes out/overdoses/dies in the car -- need physical help?

So now we have driverless cars effectively classified as emergency ambulances - so assuming the CARNOC is paying attention, they then drive the car to the hospital - and have to have a mechanism to contact said hospital

I think that driverless cars have WAY too many factors that have literally been either not well thought out, or not openly discussed.

I am positive some of these questions have been asked - but I dont see any answers forthcoming.

Imagine the healthcare implications where if someone hasa seizure, ODs, cardiac, etc... what is the response time from the CARNOC, and getting them to a hospital ==> then what types of lawsuits will these companies see? what type of insurance will they require?

<comment><USER14> _So now, in addition to everything, there will come a day when a person is stranded some-place as the driverless car couldnt exactly find them_

Ahh, if you think this is a new problem, you're too young to remember the fun of calling a cab by pay phone to some obscure address, then alternating between going inside and calling the dispatcher and then running out to the street to try to flag down the cab.

At least with a driverless car I can pinpoint my location on a map when I call it.

 _Person winds up being in an unsafe environment and needs immediate assistance._

Existing car-share (and cab) drivers are also willing to drop you off in an unsafe environment if that's where you told him you want to go. While sometimes they'll stick around to make sure you make it to your door (if you're female), that's by no means guaranteed.

<comment><USER13> im 42, so no not too young - and I appreciate your point.

I feel that people are latching onto their opinions about driverless car tech and not talking about the wider implications. That is the point, I am poorly, making, apparently....

I just think that not all the questions have been asked about what it means to be a "driverless car" and that we need to run through all the risks -- and thats the one thing I find really lacking in any of these conversations at all.

<comment><USER15> did you not read the terms of service when you opened the car door? they are not responsible.

<comment><USER16> I'm just imagining opening the door and getting a 10 second long 2000wpm recording of someone reading the TaC.

<comment><USER17> The silkscreened-onto-the-headliner bright yellow non-removable warnings weren't enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If Waymo's tech is years ahead of the competition (say 18-24 months ahead minimum) then I think a lot of the self-driving companies and car manufacturers in the US will be having cold sweats. This may not be a winner- take-all market (I don't know honestly...) but I see this lead up enabling Waymo to capture significant market share in the US in regions where laws towards autonomous vehicles are friendly.

One way the competition could attempt to mitigate Waymo's lead is to test and launch in areas where Waymo are not currently active (other states in the US, or other countries altogether). They could of course accelerate development of their self driving tech but that's easier said than done I presume.

I also worry Uber & Lyft's valuations and usage will drop with the introduction of driverless vehicles, unless they somehow manage to strike long-lasting partnerships with Waymo.

Regarding OEMs (i.e. car manufacturers), I can't tell what will happen with them: do they continue shunning Waymo and pursuing their own self-driving car efforts or come back begging for some sort of deal? I presume we will see both attitudes play out depending on how confident each company feels about its own self-driving tech ability and acquisition potential.

It's hard to foresee the consequences of this announcement, but I feel Waymo has upped the stakes tremendously today, and the pressure on everyone (including Waymo) to deliver is on, more than ever.

<comment><USER19> Waymo does seem to be ahead technically. They've been working on the hard cases for years, while the other guys are still struggling. They are trying hard to get good situational awareness. One of the few neutral measures we have are CA DMV's disconnect and accident reports, and in those, Waymo has been consistently ahead. Waymo is hooked up with FCA (Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles), of all things.

Uber is "fake it 'til you make it". Otto's truck demo only worked on a deserted highway surrounded by chase cars. Cruise also started out that way, but they seem to have improved once acquired by GM. Those guys seem to drive mostly on visual cues, without as much of a near-area model as Waymo.

Tesla has the self-crashing car. Four collisions with something partly blocking a lane, all on video. I've posted the links before. Musk made a big mistake trying to do it without LIDAR. Nobody else can do that reliably, and neither can Tesla. Tesla had to turn off most of the autonomy. Now they're shipping the Model 3 in small quantities with hardware that's only enough for lane keeping and auto-braking.

Volvo has a good, but limited 100 car demo with real drivers running. Freeway only. Their goal is "no crashes". They'll probably get there.

Ford is quietly doing something and not talking about it much.

Meanwhile, Continental and now, Delphi are quietly gearing up to make low-cost LIDARs by the millions. Despite all the talk about self-driving as a service, it may turn out to just be an auto part.

<comment><USER20> One question I can't seem to find a good answer for is this:

Why doesn't the self-driving tech hand off control to a remote driver if the internet connection is good enough and there is enough warning?

Even with a couple seconds notice a primed human could take the wheel and do the right thing when the sensors aren't making sense.

<comment><USER21> There's no good reason; it's likely what they'll do.

<comment><USER22> Never will happen. Latency is a law of nature. 60mph === 8.8 ft / 100ms. Near misses and close calls with unexpected objects can't afford the additional delay of a radio round trip that may or may not be working to make safety critical decisions. All situational awareness has to be handled on board for immediate response when needed.

<comment><USER23> I've worked on a videogame where vehicles are controlled from the client but have their physics done on the server. Server sends car position, and client sends inputs. So I can give some insight into how driveable it might actually be:

\- <40ms (round trip) is not really noticeable

\- 40-~80ms is driveable

\- 80-150ms is getting difficult

\- 150-250ms you're overcorrecting all the time

\- 250ms+ is completely undriveable

That's not trying to avoid sudden obstacles, that's just making turns etc that you already intended to make. Avoiding anything sudden would be impossible much earlier. I agree remote control over Internet will never happen.

<comment><USER24> If you set up a control center in each metro area, you could potentially have a sub 10ms RTT.

And I imagine that in a large percentage of cases the car's sensors might indicate potential danger with enough advance warning for the remote driver to take over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It'd be interesting to see how this compares in overall efficiency to properly implemented and comprehensive mass transit systems in a dense urban environment. The Tokyo metro alone (not including the JR trains, Tokyo Subway—a separate but compatible subway system, and other train transit systems which totals over 40 million daily users) handles 6.8 million passengers daily just in _one city_.

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

It seems like if it scaled to the point where even there are no drivers, there's no way such a system can support a large number of users in a dense area at the same efficiency of a train. For Taxi's the issue isn't the cost of the driver, but actually the space and traffic constraints. Medallion supplies weren't constrained due to corruption and cronyism but to prevent the overpopulation of Taxis. Removing the driver may lower costs of Taxi's but there will still be a minimum floor to Taxi prices as you can't just infinitely supply a city with driverless cars.

The area where I do see driverless taxis flourishing is suburban point-to- point transport. The current use case in SF where basically Uber and Lyfts have supplanted public transit is unique to the city, flush with money and short on public transit options.

<comment><USER26> The immediate benefit I can envision is being on the highway more than the city. I regularly do a three hour drive between two states and automating the highway portion alone would be a godsend. I've actually considered getting a Volvo S90 for this purpose, but apparently the tech still isn't really where I want it to be, which is: get on the highway, press a button, don't touch anything until the final exit.

<comment><USER27> The Audi A8 appears to be the one with the most advanced system sold this year. From the reports I read, auto pilot functions are a step ahead of Tesla. The big difference is that they don't require you to pay direct attention as they define the system as a level 3 car.

<comment><USER28> The problem is that most of the system is disabled in almost all markets while Audi waits for "regulatory approval".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This, indeed, is a major step for Waymo. While some people may be skeptical about the safety of these rides, we all saw this coming. This has been a part of the ambitious goal most self-driving companies set out when they start. The reason I say "part of the goal", is because the end goal is L5 - to handle more complex scenarios which I assume Waymo is still working on.

Taking the ninety-ninety rule or the rule of credibility into consideration, the remaining 10% of development will probably take 90% of the time. By this, I mean that reaching a stage where L5 cars are owned by consumers can take a long time (if at all people want to buy instead of sharing, but that's a separate topic). For example, running this project in Pittsburgh, Boston, or SF is much more difficult than in suburbs of Arizona. Conditions with rain, snow, uneven terrain, high population density are still difficult to handle.

Several challenges still remain, from both technical and legal perspectives. However, any of that may not undermine the tremendous opportunities for Waymo (or its partners). There are several areas/markets that are ready for this technology (e.g., ride sharing in suburbs, transportation of non-dangerous goods over passengers, etc.)

<comment><USER30> Why would self-ownership ever be the goal though? I can see people just moving en-masse to Lyft/Uber type services that use a mix of people and machines, with people eventually being phased out, and simply giving up their own cars (except for those who genuinely enjoy driving).

<comment><USER29> Interesting question. Like you, I too believe that a large population may prefer Lyft/Uber type services instead of dealing with the concerns of owning one (e.g., parking, requiring space for parking, insurance, time spent in fueling, maintenance, etc.).

However, I tend to think that there still may be a decent size of population who'd prefer owning. Others mentioned the convenience of using cars for storage, being readily available, lower cost of owning, reduced insurances, customizations, etc. Along with these, I believe some other factors exist.

In context of self-driving cars, we typically tend to picture urban transportation first. However, there will still be needs for long distance commuting, or taking long trips for pleasure. There will always be places where people frequent less compared to major spots/suburbs in a city.

People may not always want to hop into a random car every time they take a trip. The cost/time involved in flagging a car of your choice may not be worth the effort for some. Also, keep in mind that many think of cars as a statement, another way of expressing their beliefs. Take for example, preferring German vs. American vs. Japanese, some prefer minimal space, others may like to exhibit opulence.

All in all, there will be a large shift towards not-owning cars, but there may always be a market for owning (at least for a long while).

<comment><USER31> Don't forget off-road or very remote driving and camper vans.

<comment><USER32> And towing boats, or ATVs, or anything that won't fit in a small vehicle. Or going to Costco/Sam's Club and loading up on groceries. Sometimes I think many on HN live in an urban bubble without children, where everything is either ordered online or picked up at a bodega on the corner. For much of the US, life is nothing like that. There's a reason the Ford F-150 has been the most popular selling vehicle in the US for many, many years.

<comment><USER33> What makes you think you wouldn't be able to summon a self-driving Ford F-150 via the Waymo app? It's not like minivans are the only cars capable of being self-driving.

<comment><USER34> I think in a lot of places the low population density would mean the F-150 would be 20+ minutes away every time. You might get sick of that and be willing to pay to always have it.

<comment><USER33> I don't know about that. Imagine for a minute that every car on the road right now were self-driving. How far away do you suppose the nearest pickup truck is from you right now?

There may indeed be locations where 20+ minutes is a realistic answer, but I suspect those places are more rare than you think.

<comment><USER34> From me? Only about 50 yards or so.

But I don't think you can get to "every car is self-driving" without a pretty high proportion of self-ownership in rural or exurban areas. Lots of people live ~20 minutes from the nearest downtown-ish area, and you can't really serve all those people without a pretty serious wait.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> What happens if these cars get in a situation where there is no legal way to move? For instance, the other day I was driving down the street and it was closed because of a Farmers market. Will they just sit there for hours? In gridlock, there is often no way to move without "blocking the box."

<comment><USER36> Waymo and Cruise automation are building out call centres, where remote human monitors will be available to help out the vehicles when they get hung-up. The monitors won't be able to make safety-critical interventions, but they'll be able to give the cars and passengers instructions, kind of like a backseat driver, I guess.

So if there's an accident scene, for example, the human monitor will judge whether to stop and wait, navigate a path through, or turn around and find a detour.

<comment><USER37> Ah, the cat is out of the proverbial bag! These cars are not really "self- driving" at all! They are merely remote-control cars with adaptive cruise and lane assist.

So it's somewhere between a Lyft and remote surgery. What happens if the car loses internet?

<comment><USER36> No, they're not remote control. The human operators can't make safety-critical interventions, they won't be able to drive a robotaxi 50 mph into a tree, for example. There's an inherent liability associated with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Excited about the technology and expected this news eventually, but in less of a "Bam, we did it" and more of a "Coming Dec 2017... look for new autonomous vehicles, they'll be bright orange with flashing lights".

Following-up on the "How is this legal" question below, can anyone comment on:

1\. For the 'autonomous engineers/technologists':

a) Is the technology mature enough that it can be utilized without an on-board driver such that public isn't at risk?

b) Does the sensor system provide the remote "monitor" have enough situational awareness?

c) What happens if whatever up-link that the vehicle is connected to disconnects? (for example: They're using Comcast)

2\. For the 'lawyers':

a) Who's responsible if someone gets hurt or the vehicle breaks a law?

b) Is an Executive Order from the Governor the ideal channel for introducing the technology to the public (versus legislative action)? [I know subjective but curious]

3\. For the 'marketers':

a) Any examples of technologies prematurely introduced that had negative impact on their growth or contributed to their demise?

Note: I realize some of these are subjective but thought would make for some great discussion.

<comment><USER39> >a) Any examples of technologies prematurely introduced that had negative impact on their growth or contributed to their demise?

Not really a class of product, but there certainly have been interesting processor architectures whose implementations weren't very good (and/or their timing was bad) out of the gate. Itanium comes to mind although there are others as well. One can reasonably argue whether it made a difference in the long run but late and slow meant Itanium ultimately never had a chance.

>a) Who's responsible if someone gets hurt or the vehicle breaks a law?

It's an interesting question. Outside of, perhaps, drugs, it's hard to think of consumer products that, correctly maintained, and used according to directions (or even not), randomly hurt or kill people and everyone just accepts that because "stuff happens." No, they get a lawyer. It also raises questions like "I'm sorry. You're not updated to sensor suite 3.72 with firmware patch level 7865 so we're not liable" or "Your vehicle is out of support and we can no longer provide security or safety updates so you can no longer be covered for liability."

<comment><USER40> Off topic, but years ago a friend of mine participated in a jury research program around tobacco. He learned a lot of weird and fascinating stuff there. One thing he said was that cigarettes et. al. were "the only product which, _when used as directed_ , will kill you." He also said that they had apparently come up with a strain of tobacco that _wasn 't addictive_ but didn't bring it to market.

<comment><USER39> Tobacco is actually a good example of an inherently dangerous consumer product. It just doesn't make a strong case for "and everyone's just fine with it."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Levels of driving automation is an ill-defined concept.

For example, L4 is defined as "mind-off". According to Wikipedia, "the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat. Self driving is supported only in limited areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances, like traffic jams. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, i.e. park the car, if the driver does not retake control."

However, the difficulty of driving varies so much from case to case. City is significantly more complex than urban areas. If some company geofence the cars in urban areas and achieve level 4, it might be less impressive say a Level-3 system that works in complex city scenarios and extreme weather conditions.

<comment><USER42> > the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat

That's going to be hard to do while you are wearing a seatbelt and I don't see seatbelt laws rescinded just because a vehicle is self driving until car accidents are exceedingly rare.

<comment><USER43> That's because the current seats and belts are not designed for comfortable sleeping. This can change if the vehicle has L4 autonomy - the interior can be redesigned to from the ground-up to accommodate sleeping. Airplanes seats have set the precedence of having seat-belts whilst allowing for sleep.

<comment><USER42> Airplane seatbelts are only mandatory during take-off and landing as well as turbulence. It will be a very long time before any kind of driving is as safe as commercial air travel.

<comment><USER43> I wasn't talking about the laws, I was referring to the comfort baked into the design: I have slept while flying with my seat-belt on; it's not uncomfortable.

While not legally mandated, most airlines encourage people to keep their seat- belts on during cruise - this is good advice that I take to heart because turbulence is unpredictable; sudden loss of elevation are known to happen.

<comment><USER39> It's also the case that a loosely-buckled aircraft lap belt will probably keep you from making an acquaintance with the ceiling if the plane decides to suddenly make you very aware of the concept of inertia. On the other hand, should a car ram into something or something into it, the same thing is going to be pretty near useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wow! Waymo is now confident enough in their vehicles that they're willing to risk letting the public use them completely unsupervised? This seems like a huge milestone for self-driving car tech.

I wonder what their current disengagement rates are for Chandler; at this point it has to be really close to zero, right?

<comment><USER44> No public rides quite yet: "The current passengers for this test are Waymo employees, however, so it's not as if the Alphabet-owned company is throwing caution to the wind; instead, it's showing that it's ready to move to the next major phase of operations after around a decade of working on this incredibly complex problem."

<comment><USER33> I'm referring to this part:

> while the trial is starting with employees first, it's soon going to expand > to the existing members of the Chandler driverless ride hailing service > trial that Waymo kicked off at the beginning of 2017. When that happens > (sometime in the next "few months," per Krafcik, Waymo will be operating a > fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel, a > major first for the industry in terms of realizing the dream of making > commercial self-driving available to the public at large

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> There's a positive feedback loop that will happen: As they get more cars on to the road, the log more real world miles, which makes the cars better, which gets more cars onto the road which log more miles...

I wonder how valuable this is?

<comment><USER46> Tesla logs more miles per day than Waymo recorded in its history, but Waymo has better software just because of their simulations of the real world. See [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/insid...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/inside- waymos-secret-testing-and-simulation-facilities/537648/)

<comment><USER47> Waymo also has far better hardware than Tesla and that is the bigger difference. Google is getting 1500x Tesla also in performance.

[https://www.wired.com/2017/02/california-dmv-autonomous- car-...](https://www.wired.com/2017/02/california-dmv-autonomous-car- disengagement/) The Numbers Don't Lie: Self-Driving Cars Are Getting Good - Wired

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I own the same model of vehicle as Waymo is using (2017 Pacifica PHEV). It's cool to see how little they've had to visibly modify the car (apart from the sensors)—the interior looks 100% stock, other than the row of buttons on the ceiling. Given the level-1 autonomous features in the vehicle (self-parking, etc.), all of the integrations are probably done over CAN-bus, with no additional hardware required (again, apart from the sensors and the computing power).

<comment><USER49> I think there's more than that. The safety report they released recently indicates the vehicles also have redundant power systems, redundant braking systems, redundant steering systems, etc. I doubt that the stock configurations require as much redundancy.

<comment><USER48> Ah, that could be. Though could that be talking about redundant processing (i.e. two dependent algorithms making the same decision) rather than duplicate hardware?

<comment><USER49> Don't think so. You can read the descriptions on page 17 of the report: [https://storage.googleapis.com/sdc-prod/v1/safety- report/way...](https://storage.googleapis.com/sdc-prod/v1/safety-report/waymo- safety-report-2017-10.pdf)

For example: The steering system features a redundant drive motor system with independent controllers and separate power supplies. Either one can manage steering in the case that a failure occurs in the other

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Waymo's tech requires the area to be meticulously mapped correct? Is this why the test is limited to a small geography?

<comment><USER51> That's pretty terrifying that it can't read street signs and is dependent on mapping. Here in D.C., there are all sorts of fine-grained road rules, such as streets that are one-way only certain times of day, streets that reverse direction at certain times of day, turns that are legal or illegal depending on time of day, etc. That's not including random road closures.

These databases apparently don't get updated that often. Recently, D.C. moved a major highway on-ramp. It used to be that you could get on 395-S heading west on H street, by taking a left onto the on-ramp. They replaced it with an underground entrance ramp on eastbound Mass. Ave., such that westbound traffic on H or Mass. Ave. could no longer use the on-ramp, and had to go several blocks south to use a different one. This was a widely-publicized move planned long in advance. And at least Apple Maps tried to steer me down the old route for awhile.

Similar thing in our neighborhood just outside the Annapolis city limits. They closed our street to car traffic with barriers, so that you can get in an out but can't drive along it for more than one cross street. Whatever database Uber uses still hasn't figured this out--I'll get Uber drivers waiting for me on the other side of one of the barriers.

<comment><USER52> It can read street signs, even hand-held STOP signs in the hands of construction workers. And the cars are continuously mapping their surroundings. But they ALSO use a shared, extremely high quality map database for first-level path planning.

edit: [https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/insid...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/inside- waymos-secret-testing-and-simulation-facilities/537648/)

<comment><USER53> And it can even see and understand the hand gestures (e.g. turn signs) of cyclists.

<comment><USER42> It's the cyclists that don't do hand gestures that are the problem. Which is - where I live - the vast majority of them.

<comment><USER54> I bet it's still safer for the cyclists than the average human-driven car, though.

<comment><USER42> Time will tell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Why are the videos always done in perfect conditions? I like drive.ai's approach a lot more where they demonstrated the capabilities at night and in heavy rain. It's much more impressive.

<comment><USER56> What looks impressive in a video is often smoke and mirrors. Just because your car is working in inclement weather for the duration of a video doesn't mean it's safe or that the behavior scales to all situations. Proving that it doesn't cause catastrophic problems is even harder (you need sim).

FWIW most autonomous cars work great at night. As for weather, nobody has heavy rain completely solved (yet) (afaik). It messes with both camera and lasers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> A lot of what if scenarios being asked. The key takeaway here is that anyone that drives a truck, taxi, uber, lyft, or any other vehicle for a living will highly likely be out of a job in the next 10-15 years. So roughly about 10-12% of the global workforce will be unemployed.

</comment><comment><USER58> _Throws money at screen_

Having said that I do love seeing these wide, straight American roads and wonder how well this will do on the tiny (often single track) winding country roads around here.

<comment><USER59> staying on the road isn't the hard part. all that can be mapped, even in areas with poor road markings.

dealing with other road users and abusers is far harder

<comment><USER58> Indeed. A day doesn't go by when I don't see drivers looking at their mobile phones, vans parked in the road on a blind bend, tractors which are wider than a single lane (or people who just think that because it's a country road they "should" straddle the middle of the road) etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> The cars could be subject to vandalism, or at the very least really aggressive driving. The predictability of the driving and the lack of a driver is going to result in weird interactions with people.

</comment><comment><USER61> Is there a website/document that compare the status of all existing self- driving cars initiatives?

<comment><USER62> California requires all companies with self-driving cars operating in the state to provide reports about miles driven, cars operated, number of disengagements, etc.

Here's a link: [https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disen...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/disengagement_report_2016)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I was really excited, until I read that the change they made is not to have no employee in the car at all. They moved the safety employee from the front to the back.

<comment><USER64> Less dramatic, but it makes a lot of sense. If nothing else, a human presence is probably still useful for common cases like a human rear-ending the car. I haven't really seen anyone with a plan for handling all the non-driving issues cars regularly face.

<comment><USER65> Yeah good point. Until they have the full infrastructure set up for handling exceptional situations remotely, it's probably a lot easier to have someone there at all times just in case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I think they're massively underestimating the general public's reaction to something like this. I as a nerdy tech dude think this is very tight and if I was much younger this would blow my mind, but I think this also might frighten many people.

I don't know if that's being considered at all here or maybe the transition will be slow enough to allow people to cope with the change.

<comment><USER67> They have been doing a series of incremental steps and press releases over the last several months. They started the early rider program in April. Recently they have been ramping up the press and public information program. They released a large 'safety report'. They have been working on self-driving education programs with organizations like MADD and NSC. They even put up billboards in Phoenix related to self-driving safety/education. They also did a big press event just recently inviting like 40 major media outlets including NY Times, WSJ etc. to their test track to give journalists rides and announce they would be launching soon.

Surprised you haven't heard about this stuff. They have been working pretty hard to publicize and market it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Neither here nor there, but I found that the construction "hard to understate" is either wrong or super confusing.

Apparently I'm not alone [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=11177](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=11177)

</comment><comment><USER69> What simulators, if any, do these self-driving car companies use for testing and development? Is any of these simulators available to the general public (I'm guessing probably not)? I read about something called Carcraft in Waymo's case, but it doesn't seem available.

<comment><USER70> We at Microsoft Research have been developing this: [https://github.com/microsoft/airsim](https://github.com/microsoft/airsim). It has car model to test self-driving algorithms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Imagine a world where every car crash is investigated as thoroughly as plane accidents today.

</comment><comment><USER72> How is this legal?

<comment><USER73> Arizona's government has deliberately taken a very pro-autonomous vehicles approach. The governor's executive order [1] specifically allows driverless vehicles on the roads within the state, provided they follow traffic laws and there is a licensed driver somewhere who will take responsibility if something goes wrong.

[1] [https://azgovernor.gov/file/2660/download?token=nLkPLRi1](https://azgovernor.gov/file/2660/download?token=nLkPLRi1)

<comment><USER33> > a licensed driver somewhere

So, who would that be in this case? Does Waymo have a licensed driver monitoring the vehicle remotely, ready to take over at a moment's notice?

<comment><USER73> I'm not sure about "at a moment's notice", but yes they're supposed to have live operators standing by who can remotely direct the vehicles when needed. Since these are Level 4 vehicles, they should be able to safely pull over or stop when they are unsure what to do, so it isn't necessary to have a human continuously monitoring at all times.

<comment><USER74> What are level 4 vehicles?

<comment><USER75> > Level 0: Automated system issues warnings but has no vehicle control.

> Level 1 ("hands on"): Driver and automated system shares control over the > vehicle. An example would be Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) where the driver > controls steering and the automated system controls speed. Using Parking > Assistance, steering is automated while speed is manual. The driver must be > ready to retake full control at any time. Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA) Type > II is a further example of level 1 self driving.

> Level 2 ("hands off"): The automated system takes full control of the > vehicle (accelerating, braking, and steering). The driver must monitor the > driving and be prepared to immediately intervene at any time if the > automated system fails to respond properly. The shorthand "hands off" is not > meant to be taken literally. In fact, contact between hand and wheel is > often mandatory during SAE 2 driving, to confirm that the driver is ready to > intervene.

> Level 3 ("eyes off"): The driver can safely turn their attention away from > the driving tasks, e.g. the driver can text or watch a movie. The vehicle > will handle situations that call for an immediate response, like emergency > braking. The driver must still be prepared to intervene within some limited > time, specified by the manufacturer, when called upon by the vehicle to do > so. In 2017 the Audi A8 Luxury Sedan was the first commercial car to claim > to be able to do level 3 self driving. The car has a so called Traffic Jam > Pilot. When activated by the human driver the car takes full control of all > aspects of driving in slow-moving traffic at up to 60 kilometers per hour. > The function only works on highways with a physical barrier separating > oncoming traffic.

> Level 4 ("mind off"): As level 3, but no driver attention is ever required > for safety, i.e. the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's > seat. Self driving is supported only in limited areas (geofenced) or under > special circumstances, like traffic jams. Outside of these areas or > circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, i.e. park > the car, if the driver does not retake control.

> Level 5 ("steering wheel optional"): No human intervention is required. An > example would be a robotic taxi.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Levels_of_drivi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#Levels_of_driving_automation)

<comment><USER74> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> I saw they were/are offering free rides to anyone who wants to be one of the testers in my metro area. I'm all for free but I'm not too sure about being a human beta test lol.

</comment><comment><USER77> > Waymo chose the Phoenix area for its favorable weather, its wide, well- > maintained streets, and the relative lack of pedestrians. [1]

These are not very common conditions. So what is Waymo's plan for the rest of the world? And what wizardry is needed to make it happen?

1\. [https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/report-waymo-aiming- to-...](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/report-waymo-aiming-to-launch- commercial-driverless-service-this-year/)

</comment><comment><USER78> I think it's also interesting that they are developing a car for this purpose alone. No steering wheel, no pedals.

As far as I know there is no other brand that does this.

</comment><comment><USER79> Just a small point, but I'm curious if the road rights of way are significantly different there to the UK. I ask because in the video there's a bit near the end where the car pulls out of a smaller road in front of a red car that I'd normally have considered to have the right of way. Obviously they left it in intentionally, so is that kind of manouver simply not against the right of way there?

<comment><USER80> The red car had a stop sign too. You can see the back of the hexagonal stop sign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Great discussion, but what about the more human-based issues?

Like what happens if I forget my phone in one of these ride-sharing vehicles and someone else had jumped in right after me?

What happens when someone trashes a vehicle? Are there going to be cameras in these vehicles to track bad behavior? If so, what about the privacy implications?

I don't have answers to any of these questions, but I'd be interested to see what you all think

<comment><USER82> What happens when you leave your phone on the bus or train? You hope some Good Samaritan finds a way to return it to you, or hope the people who manage the vehicle find it whenever they do cleaning or maintenance. Why would this be any different?

Regarding a trashed vehicle, one imagines the next rider will have a way to note that in the app or in-vehicle UI. Cameras... Maybe, depends on how people tolerate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> Are these companies working on a Waze for self driving cars.

Shouldn't these companies, the DMV and other parties involved agree on a standard for inter-car communications?

Why should we wait for Lidar to tell my car about a crash 3 turns away, if a shared broadcast/receive system can do it faster?

</comment><comment><USER84> Does it pull over for police? And what about for police impersonators?

<comment><USER33> Yes and yes. [https://medium.com/waymo/recognizing-the-sights-and- sounds-o...](https://medium.com/waymo/recognizing-the-sights-and-sounds-of- emergency-vehicles-8161e90d137e) Though one can easily imagine a system designed to prevent the latter.

Preventing hijackings is more complicated than that though, since an autonomous vehicle will stop for anyone who gets in its way, not just police officers. The array of cameras, lidar sensors, etc each car comes with is probably a fairly decent deterrent against that threat already though.

<comment><USER84> I guess eventually police vehicles can just stop autonomous ones with the press of a button, so it doesn't have to rely on its "senses". Some two-way identification between the vehicles; avoid the issue of impersonators completely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Wow.

Yesterday it seemed that most people on HN felt level 4 self driving on public roads was at least 5 years away.

Today that estimate needs to be revised. Seems the future is coming faster than we thought.

</comment><comment><USER86> Lyft and Uber either beats the big tech or big auto to self driving tech... or they are dead. I'm putting my money on the latter.

</comment><comment><USER87> They're driving on public roads, without a human backup driver, among random regular unaffiliated drivers.

So in what sense is this a test?

</comment><comment><USER88> The self driving (small)cars will almost be gone from every motorway within 20 years is my prediction. They will be replaced by self driving busses, trains and boats combined with a smart docking system where you automatically change "vehicle" at speed. This way we can travel at a fraction of the cost/emissions. We will se the first docking system on highway within 10 years, and the first prototypes within 5.

<comment><USER89> We already have self driving trains in much of the world. It's a solve problem and cars can't even remotely touch the capacity of a train line. Self driving cars are not a solution and yes, America needs to see a huge car reduction within the next 20 years to deal with gridlock. I've written about it before:

[http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not- sol...](http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-solve-the- transportation-problem/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Are any self driving solutions considering letting the passenger pilot after the car has arrived autonomously?

</comment><comment><USER32> Considering how often Google/Alphabet orphans products, I'm not holding my breath for this to occur in my lifetime, not counting all the technical issues that get handwaved away in any discussion of autonomous vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER91> I just want a self-driving RV with 1Gbps internet.

</comment><comment><USER92> But who cares? They convinced us somehow that self driving cars are important, but it's just self-important, gets the investors attention and money. Now time to move on to the next big thing.

<comment><USER93> You don't think self driving cars are important? Can you elaborate on why not?

<comment><USER92> No need to rush it. Companies developing the tech might say it's important to have it now but mostly because they need money now to survive. And they dont have any product to make the business real. So, they sell the hype, I would not pay attention to that. Maybe do a reality check every 5 years instead of jumping up at every 'breakthrough' news from the ceos.

<comment><USER93> Of all the companies doing driverless cars Waymo has the resources of Alphabet. They don't need the money to survive and aren't looking for their next round of VC money.

If a driverless ride hailing service isn't worth paying attention to what is?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> So did they solve the Trolley Problem?

<comment><USER95> That's always been more of a philosophical idea than a real problem. I've been driving a few decades and don't often run into Trolley situations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> Yo I have the best hands-free, no-attention transit system. Already. It's called the fucking train.

</comment><comment><USER97> Has anyone driven in one?

</comment><comment><USER98> road rage will never be the same

</comment><comment><USER99> Let them free, let them fly. The power is in your eyes. - Trashy Neighborhood Band

</comment><comment><USER100> I'd like to see successful rain/night/snow/road construction/fog condition tests before I get in one

<comment><USER101> No worries, they won't put you in a self driving car that isn't perfectly safe. Considering Alphabet sold Boston Dynamics because of PR issues (remember kicking the robots) they won't allow any human losses.

<comment><USER42> > No worries, they won't put you in a self driving car that isn't perfectly > safe.

That they _think_ isn't perfectly safe.

It's not about what they will allow or not. It is about what will happen. Whether or not it will happen remains to be seen, even if Waymo does not allow it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> I hope these cars eventually drive more aggressively than the video shows. With zero traffic they seem to inch along.

<comment><USER103> The video shows the vehicle operating at 25 MPH in residential blocks, approaching speed bumps at 10 MPH, respecting a temporary 15 MPH school zone, and coming to a full and complete stop at stop signs and red lights.

That is how you are supposed to drive a car.

<comment><USER104> Yes. The current situation is funny since it's a game of "what's the most effective limit to tell people to stick to" rather than "what's the most effective limit to stick to". Maybe once all cars drive under the limit we will decide that the limits are too low and increase them. And maybe a lot of stop signs will turn into yield signs at some point too.

<comment><USER102> Yeah this is precisely the point I was trying to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> The interstate highway system is an enormous and expensive asset paid for by the taxpayers of the US. Shouldn't we have a conversation about the rights of citizens before allowing corporations to set a precedent that we will not be able to roll back later?

<comment><USER106> what rights are you worried about? commcerial vehicles operate on our highways all the time. corporations are also tax payers in the US

<comment><USER107> If the driver of a commercial road vehicle makes a mistake which causes a serious accident or behaves in a way deemed reckless or inattentive, they can go to jail. Similarly, I was under the impression that the humans who took over Waymo vehicles according to very conservative engagement protocols (and according to Waymo's calculations prevented several accidents) had responsibility for the road vehicle

Who goes to jail if Waymo vehicles behave in a similar manner?

Assuming the answer is "nobody", how did this get greenlighted with so little discussion?

<comment><USER108> Whats your deal with putting people in jail, and why would you assume no on will be punished if something goes wrong?

Obviously there will be repercussions for accidents, but we don't know what they are or how it will play out.

<comment><USER109> > Obviously there will be repercussions for accidents, but we don't know what > they are or how it will play out.

The top-level comment was just asking if we could work out how this might look beforehand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I do a hit and run on a driverless car, assume its on its way to pickup a passenger, so no humans involved.

I hack a driverless car, again with no passengers, and make it do my bidding (hit that other [thing])

I follow driverless car back to its charging base and slash its tires?

I rearend a driverless car then leave the scene? (same as option 1 I guess - but could be applied differently)

A driverless car gets into its first fatal accident of a passenger, will that lawsuit result in the shutdown of the company? Who specifically will be held to account? Will the developer of the software? Will the engineer who didnt provide sufficient sensors? What if the driverless car looses traction due to black ice, and that results in the death of the passenger or another driver?

Im ubering from place A to place B and my phone dies early in the trip and the uber ride cant bill me?

What happens? There are a lot more questions that should be posed - and we should answer them all.

<comment><USER110> Your vehicle and face are recorded by half a dozen cameras on the self-driving car and uploaded to the local police department for the accident report.

<comment><USER111> I think it's safe to say if someone was going to intentionally attack a Google self-driving car, say to hack it and direct it at a target, they'd bother to make a basic attempt to counteract the cameras. Something like those glasses with infrared lights that blind surveillance cams? Put some near your license plates as well perhaps, I don't know.

Not that I agree with the parent this is likely, but most of the replies here seem to ignore that technology is pretty easy to mitigate if you know what you're up against.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, basically exactly hat I am saying, aside from the medical questions...

Waymo had better have setup a course at DEFCON and see what those amazing minds can figure out on how to secure self driving vehicles.

This isnt a joke, this needs to be thoroughly sussed out</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Copy an innodb database from server to server in one command - <AUTHOR> https://mysqldba.blogspot.com/2016/11/innodb-tablespace-copy-in-go-lang.html <comment><USER2> Any limitation if the size of DB is big? We have 120GB DB E3 server with 24GB RAM and 512GB SSD and 40GB Free space. We are looking for solution similar to this.</comment>


Fuck it, ship it. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.opbeat.com/2012/08/09/fuck-it-ship-it/ <comment><USER2> _We realized that we were already using Opbeat to operate Opbeat! Actually we had been doing so for quite some time. It seems crazy that we'd forgotten the fact that Opbeat was already helping us._

So they discover the concept of eating your own dog food

<comment><USER3> No, they realized their dog food was edible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Since when does a private, invitation-only beta count as "shipping"?

<comment><USER5> It depends what you're working on.

If it's a weekend Flash game, fair enough. If it's a payment processor, and real customers are going to make or lose real money, that would absolutely count.

Hosted web operations seems like it's more in the second camp than the first. If their product has bugs and starts trashing backup servers, there's going to be hell to pay.

<comment><USER6> Still, write about it when we can actually go try it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How about "Fuck yeah! Ship that bad boy!"?

To me, "fuck it" has a defeatist connotation that really has no place around something that you are proud of.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can't you ship it unfucked?

<comment><USER9> I know cursing to emphasize your point is the popular thing now days, but I read it literally too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fuck it, product announcement.

</comment><comment><USER11> In a sense, this goes in line with "release early, release often". I get that it's a big step to actually release a software or service, but the more you wait, the more you risk actually defining the product too much, or missing the boat completely while someone else takes the prize. I think even a service that is somewhat prone to errors can be released as long as it's made clear that it is, and that it's at least decently functional. And it is, of course, absolutely imperative that an easy to reach and easy to use feedback system be put in place.

</comment><comment><USER12> Coming from a poker background, ship it has the connotation of "shipping the pot" or winning the pot. Oftentimes players will yell "SHIP ITTTTT!!!" when they have won a large pot. This gives this phrase a little more positive connotation for me.

</comment><comment><USER13> Cool poster but I imagine clients would be turned off a bit by that mentality.

</comment><comment><USER14> I am also an advocate of releasing early as that will help you getting some feedback from the users. Of course you need to reach a certain point in order to do that. Also like the poster.

</comment><comment><USER15> Also known as "Fuck it, support it forever or burn bridges!"

</comment><comment><USER16> Fuck it ship it! I find these short motivational posts quite nice. It just feels good reading stuff like this. Like a hackers feel good article.

</comment><comment><USER17> Awesome poster. Please put it up for sale somewhere!

</comment><comment><USER18> Fuck it, steal it!

<comment><USER11> Funny I thought the same thing. "Fuck it, piratebay it!" I guess TPB stole the ship image from common culture...

<comment><USER19> Even if it's not a CC image, the pirate bay are probably the least likely people in the world to sue.

<comment><USER20> It's an image by Scott Foresman (the company) and released into the public domain: <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:Galleon_(PSF).png>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> X-Istence What is opbeat?

<comment><USER21> Haha, did you just reference the "smells like updawg in here" joke?

<comment> X-Istence No, I still have no idea what opbeat is, what they do, and why I would want to beta test their service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wow, "Opbeat" sounds awfully close to "Chartbeat". In fact, I'd assume Opbeat was another product by Chartbeat if I didn't know any better -- especially given the chart graphics they use.

IANAL, but should they be worried about trademark infringement? Seems like a risky name to choose.</comment>


"Fake Steve Conroy" fesses up: Twitter satire of Australian Communications Minister - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technology/fake-stephen-conroy-outed/2009/03/17/1237054799469.html

<comment><AUTHOR> In the spirit of FSJ, intended in part to satirize Australian governmental attempts to increase internet censorship.

Some of the tweets:

"Apparently LOL means 'Laugh Out Loud' and not 'Lots Of Love'. Now I'm going to have to re-read all those internet comments about me."

"about to board my flight to Melbourne .. nabbed seat 1B! a person in a wheelchair was going to get it .. lucky IM CONROY! Trump card played!"

"When I Googled for information on how to circumvent surrogacy laws in Victoria, I bookmarked the results so we could ban the sites later."

"The filter is a community service; it's not just about removing content, we can also repair content. We can make it truthier."

"I don't think it's unreasonable to compare the National Filter Network to a cure for Super-AIDS; both of them protect children."

"Dear journalists; please do not continue to report on my enormous penis and ability to please the ladies. My personal life is off-limits."

"Today I received an I-Phone. The IT people tell me that it is biometrically activated, but no matter how much I lick it, it won't turn on."</comment>


Show HN: Amatino – A double-entry accounting API - <AUTHOR> https://amatino.io/ <comment><USER2> I don't get it. What is the point of being able to push ledger entries to this service? It isn't really SaaS, as you'd expect to get reporting and other stuff. Plus ledger entries are pretty critical for a business and often have some regulatory requirements, which I am not sure this service could fulfil.

<comment><USER3> In addition ledger entries are the simplest part of accounting. Invoices, credit notes, tax, etc. are the harder parts.

For ledger entries, create a table and SQL makes a reasonable api. Maybe some stored procedures for protecting integrity.

<comment><AUTHOR> I humbly disagree, but very much appreciate you taking the time to critique, whatsstolat! Please allow me to present a counter argument for you to consider...

In my opinion, ledger entries are the hardest part of accounting. Invoices, etc, are all supersets of double-entry accounting, and can be reduced to collections of entries if the underlying double-entry system is sufficiently robust, generic, and and capable.

Such a system should be able to, for example, recursively sum entire account trees, while transparently translating (instantly) across heterogeneous units of account (e.g. stocks, currencies, cryptos, intangibles), and do all that on any device, on any platform, at any time, anywhere on Earth, on demand.

I know this sounds crazy - Sometimes I think I am crazy! Across the world, between companies, and even within Big4 accounting firms, there are infinite ways of constructing an 'invoice' or a 'credit note'. Everyone has their preferred way, none being right or wrong.

Amatino aims to sit below that level - Allowing developers to create their accounting system their way. No compromises.

Again, I really appreciate you looking, even if you think Amatino isn't a worthwhile project. Pondering this reply was in itself a very valuable exercise for me, so thank you for taking the time to comment!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone - I apologise for linking directly to the Amatino blog, instead of the Amatino site itself ([https://amatino.io](https://amatino.io)). I deleted my initial Show HN submission, having thought I posted in the wrong place, and found I could not resubmit the same URL.

The blog is probably a good place to start anyway, as it shows real development rather than my marketing-speak!

<comment><USER4> Can you explain a bit how do you see it being used? I mean, can you describe an hypothetical application using it?

The impression I get from the site is that you're essentially a hosted database with a predefined schema, but I'm guessing there's more to it.

Good luck on the project!

<comment><USER5> It's an accounting environment, and every system that provides goods and/or services needs to record the transactions in an accounting system. You can either use an existing accounting system such as Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Microsoft Dynamics, but then you're writing a document to those services rather than the underlying accounts forcing you to define the sales document's properties in the accounting system. In this case you should be able to keep your documents (sales invoice/credit memo) internal to your application, and the underlying account structure. In addition using Amatino should let you create accounting schedules in your application based off the ledgers. I guess you would use Amatino where you want more control over your accounting system, and I would imagine it costs less than the full-blown commercial offerings.

<comment><USER4> Right, but recording transactions is the easy part; you can even take the schema from their docs, create a few DB tables from it, and just push to a local DB.

The reason to use a real accounting system is for the extra features (mainly reports), but I don't see them in this API, so you'd still need to export your data to one of those systems. So I'm struggling to see the advantage of pushing data to their service rather than to a local DB.

<comment><USER5> More is required than a db schema; the double entry would have to be in app logic, permission model, aging, etc. Reports are nice, but in my experience I have always had to provide additional reporting on top of what is provided by an accounting system because the business had its own requirements. I see this being useful where you are trying to avoid a traditional accounting system because you willing to provide more customization.

<comment><AUTHOR> You put it better than I can, voidmain0001! I've so often been frustrated by being unable to extend an accounting system to suit my needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I worked at Xero we had lots of customers using the API to do exactly this. That said, I see value in having a api independent and agnostic from the accounting backend / saas itself, but probably more relevant for larger integrations (where the cost of switching out the integration would be extremely costly). This would also be valuable for franchises or software vendors, who could build the integration once, and then have Amatino handle the integrations to each accounting system.

The primary issue becomes ensuring the integration to the accounting systems stays high value, rather than lowest common denominator. Ie: ensure reports are usable, accounting records are in a usable format (invoices, credit notes, etc rather than a bunch of journal entries), payments are applied, bank accounts can be reconciled. If that can be nailed I feel this has value.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, RileyJames, thanks so much for taking a look. It's exciting to hear your thoughts as a Xero alumni. Xero is a big inspiration for me, and I love that it has made accounting easier for so many businesses.

'Independent and agnostic from the accounting backend / says' is exactly what I'm going for, and I'm really excited to hear that you see some value in the concept. I'll take your advice to heart!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> We needed this to maintain accounts for our B2B products, so we came up with [https://github.com/RealImage/QLedger](https://github.com/RealImage/QLedger) \- we deploy the ledger as an internal service (Go+Postgres+Docker) and write a 'Bank' over it for each business model that we have (two-party / multiparty). Works great so far, and is pretty solid.

Would love feedback. We haven't yet hit the scale where postgres can't sum up the transactions in time and we need to maintain caches, but we're willing to look at ideas for that.

</comment><comment><USER8> I agree with others that I'm not sure what a SaaS API here helps with without a lot of existing integrations/bridges to other accounting systems, data lakes/BI systems, or at the very least a good general UX that provides even basic human-readable ledgers.

Also, as an API design it seems to leak abstractions that the client should maybe not worry about. If the goal is to help applications do proper double- entry accounting, then it should provide means to add transactions without knowing the gritty details specific to entries.

Aside: I worked on API side of double entry accounting program once, long ago. In college I was an intern on Microsoft Small Business Accounting (which was renamed/rebranded towards the end of while I was there to Office Accounting). It's a shame that product was cancelled, as it was good product with proper double-entry, good reports, and a great API (even despite my major attempted improvements never making it into the product before it was cancelled ;).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi WorldMaker, thanks so much for taking a look at Amatino. It's very humbling to know that someone with your experience has critiqued my work!

<comment><USER8> It was only six months experience directly related to this field, for what little that it is worth. :) I wish you better luck than the project I had worked on. Accounting is a tough field to compete in, because everyone thinks they can do it on the back of napkins or in Excel, up until they have to pay a CPA to tell them everything that they did wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does this work from a security perspective? If I'm an Amatino client, are you storing my customers' financial data?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you used Amatino as the double-entry layer of your product then yes, Amatino would be storing your customer's financial data. My aim is to make Amatino a very low-level service, akin to an Amazon S3 for double-entry data, wherein people are comfortable building products on top of it. (A very tough goal, I know!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In your roadmap I see "Deploy to multiple global cities based on public feedback and demand" and "Complete global deployment in all practicable global cities"

This sounds like it could be a huge waste of time compared to investing in other areas of the product. How have you determined that your customers care where your service is hosted?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking a look at Amatino, sciurus, I'm so excited that you got so far as the roadmap!

In "MVP" testing, I found that one of the critical problems with the service was latency. Amatino was used as the data layer for a GUI accounting application. When the service was running ~200ms+ away, the application spent too much time doing 'loading spinners' and the user experience began to suffer.

This experience led me to adopt a distributed design, that allows Amatino to sit as close as possible to end users.

Fortunately, deploying to a new region is as simple as running one script, the process is fully automated. So I don't have to worry about trading time on investing in other areas of the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would not know why would anybody wish to give their accounting information to any online company, distant, unknown.

So people don't do it.

Imagine, your own accountant knows everything about you. Hyr knows your suppliers and your buyers, he has close insight in your business. And you need to be careful with him.

Best is if you can handle your accounting yourself. There is free software for that like [https://www.gnucash.org](https://www.gnucash.org) and others. There is also online free software, which you can install on your intranet.

Do not install your accounting online. Internet is not for doing your private business.

And do not give your accounting data to anybody online.

Come back to basics and keep your business private!

<comment><AUTHOR> rcdwealth, it might sound crazy, but on a personal level I agree with you! Amatino was born out of my own frustrations with existing "cloud accounting" and the implications for my data.

I am a die-hard GnuCash fanatic!

In the end, I came to the conclusion that many people want to store their data online. Whether it is their intimate photos, medical history, or bank statement. Yet some services do not meet this trust with discretion. That angers me, upsets me, and gets me fired up to write good code.

I want to give those people a way to store their financial data that is up to my paranoid privacy standards. Privacy has informed a lot of design decisions in Amatino, often to the detriment of performance or features.

I'm starting to blab on - I'd love to continue this thread though! Privacy is issue #1 for me and I would happily chat about it all day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't think I understand this. Isn't the double-entry more of an implementation detail?

Instead of...

      entries: [
        Entry(side: .debit, account: cash, amount: Decimal(42)),
        Entry(side: .credit, account: revenue, amount: Decimal(42))
      ],

...you could have:

      debitAccount: cash,
      creditAccount: revenue,
      amount: Decimal(42)

In other words, why does the client need to care about multiple entries in the call. I just want to record that X amount was sent from account Y to account Z. You can atomically record that as two entries in the back-end.

<comment><USER13> A single transaction should not be limited to just two nominal codes. For example, an invoice/payment might be split between Hardware, Software, Haulage and Tax/Vat and the other side would be the bank account. You also don't want to see multiple entries on your bank nominal when there was only one actual payment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly :) - Each Transaction can have (arbitrary limit) 100 entries in Amatino.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As a complete accounting noob, why should I use this?

How is this supposed to help me instead of listing the transactions from my own sales_history table of my local DB?

Do I need to create a GUI for your service listing the transactions?

Let's say I implement your service. You have all transaction data, fine, then what? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi kowdermeister! Thanks for taking a peek at Amatino, I'm super excited to answer your question, I'll try to keep it brief...

In my fantasy land, Amatino has replaced your 'sales_history' table completely, from an accounting perspective. As your business grows and your needs grow more complex, you would make calls to Amatino rather than developing new internal solutions.

For example, perhaps your sales_history table is implicitly denominated in Euros, but you expand into the US and now need to store U.S. Dollar amounts. In Amatino, you could instantly create a USD revenue account, and proceed to view a combined balance of all revenue accounts.

The time you would have spent dealing with manipulating double-entry data instead goes into making your product more awesome.

Obviously Amatino has a long way to go to earn that level of trust!

<comment><USER14> Thanks for taking the time to answer, but I don't get why should I opt-in to double entry bookkeeping. For someone who wants to build a side-project this is the last thing I want to think about.

Also, if you track sales in euros and dollars, then how do you track the changes in the exchange ratios?

What about rest? What happens to the data you aggregate? It just sounds like more work for me to make it available to my accountant.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh! I see, I apologise, I may have misinterpreted your question. Amatino would be applicable to someone who is building a project that needs double-entry bookkeeping to function. For example, they might be a fintech startup building an early invoice payment trading platform. Rather than building their own double-entry layer, they could leverage Amatino.

If double-entry accounting only exists in your project insofar as you need to account for your own business, then, as you say, Amatino would probably be an excessive solution creating unnecessary work.

Aside, on the topic of exchange rates - Amatino has built in daily exchange rates between each of 36 major currencies (You can also feed it your own, if you want more resolution / different units of account). It also automagically computes unrealised gains and losses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Soooo many startups don't have solid accounting implemented in their money handling applications. Double entry accounting has been around for a long, long, long time, making it easy to reconcile account balances. It's just a matter of implementation.

<comment><AUTHOR> deedubaya, I couldn't agree more. Some of the accounting implementations I have come across have made me want to barf. It is my dream that Amatino will make it easy for businesses to develop robust, performant, flexible accounting systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very good idea, but the documentation is not very intuitive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks fiatjaf! The documentation definitely needs work. And worse, it only documents HTTP interactions, not the rapidly expanding client libraries! Do you have any examples of documentation you really like? I'm a big fan of Stripe's but I'm not sure if I can replicate that level of quality quickly.

<comment><USER16> Ok, actually I don't think the documentation needs to be improved a lot, I think you can get 1000% better if you add a "quick start" guide for developers. Just a small page with examples so they get the feel of it. Then they can consult the full reference if they need do to anything else.

For example, [https://strike.acinq.co/documentation/get- started](https://strike.acinq.co/documentation/get-started) and [https://developers.trello.com/docs/api- introduction](https://developers.trello.com/docs/api-introduction)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, thank you so much for those examples, fiatjaf! I actually already had a 'getting started' page ([https://amatino.io/articles/getting- started](https://amatino.io/articles/getting-started)) but it is nowhere near as good as those ones you've linked. Plus it obviously is not easy enough to discover! I'll review those examples and try to lift Amatino up to their standards.

PS - Strike's page is so nice! Hnnnggg. Love the little diagram.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The pricing is attractive. It's low enough that I would consider prototyping against it to see if it'd work for a future project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhh! thieving_magpie your comment made me so happy! I'd be thrilled to help you tinker with Amatino, if you ever do proceed to give it a go.

I'm so glad you find the pricing attractive. I've devoted a lot of effort building the system in a cost effective way, so I can keep the price down.</comment></comment>


How an angry maths blog sparked a scientific publishing revolution - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/09/frustrated-blogpost-boycott-scientific-journals

<comment><USER2> In response to this movement, the editors of Nature defend the value they add to the scientific process as follows: "[publishing original research requires us to] undertake careful assessment of scientific significance, and the refereeing stage involves much deliberation, occasional debate and revisions that significantly enhance the robustness and scientific impact of the paper".[1]

In other words, the editors of a respected scientific journal are openly admitting they would rather have all critical assessments, deliberations, debates, and revisions take place _behind closed doors_ instead of out in the open, where it would benefit society the most! They don't see that they are _reducing_ societal welfare!

I suspect the folks at Elsevier and the like are rationalizing their outdated business models with similarly flawed, self-serving logic. What a shame.

[1] [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7382/full/481409a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v481/n7382/full/481409a.html)</comment>